On March 22 at Fair Grounds, a local hero delivered a win for the home team. Six-year-old gelding Touchuponastar, bred by Keith and Ginger Myers’ Coteau Grove Farms, outclassed rivals including 2024 champion three-year-old male Sierra Leone to capture the New Orleans Classic Stakes (G2).
Natives of Palmetto, Louisiana—whose population numbers in the hundreds—Keith and Ginger come from farming backgrounds. Keith’s interest in Thoroughbreds was sparked early on. Keith recalled, “Yeah, so my grandfather was very passionate about horse racing. It was my mother’s father, and so I’d spend as much time with him and my grandmother as I could because I just loved everything about it.” He rode his grandfather’s horses and admired his sharp style. For her part, Ginger’s family raised cattle, but she fell in love with horses after she and Keith purchased what would become Coteau Grove in 2008, and they began foaling. Coteau Grove’s focus on mares led Ginger to adopt a slogan: “It’s a girls’ world.”
Located in Sunset—a spot known for its rich soil—Coteau Grove now spreads over 475 acres, and the Myers live on the property. Keith shared, “We have two stallions, but they don’t board here. They board at a stallion farm [Whispering Oaks Farm in Carencro] that’s just about four miles up the road from us. We keep them there. We currently have 62 mares, but they’re all Kentucky bloodlines.
“When we started to build the farm, we bought the first eight horses in November of 2008 at the Keeneland Sale. And from those eight, the very first horse born on the farm was Little Ms Protocol. Ginger helped deliver her, imprinted her, stayed in the stall with her overnight.” He added, “We paid $400,000 total for the eight mares. And Little Ms Protocol was the first one born on the farm, our first runner, and she made $731,000 and paid for the first piece of property we bought and the eight horses we bought.” Named for how she crossed her legs after falling down while learning to stand, Little Ms Protocol foaled grade 2-placed The Great One (by Nyquist); she had a Gunite colt this year and will be bred back to Wit.
In 2020, Coteau Grove-bred No Parole (by Violence) captured the Woody Stephens Stakes (G1). He ran against grade 3 winner Wit , now standing at Whispering Oaks. With both horses, Coteau Grove and Whispering Oaks are bringing Kentucky quality to Louisiana. Keith reflected, “In Louisiana’s program, breeders get 25 percent of earnings for horses that—for horses that were bred by stallions domiciled in Louisiana, and 20 percent if you choose to go to Kentucky every other year, you get 20 percent on those. So it’s pretty lucrative. But moving Wit down here, I mean, a lot of the breeders see it as an opportunity to get to a Kentucky horse without having to go to the expense of sending horses to Kentucky. So I think just upping the quality of stallions in the state was something we thought that would be well-received, and it has been.”
As for Touchuponastar, he is by leading Louisana sire Star Guitar out of the Lion Heart mare Touch Magic. Touch Magic also foaled stakes-placed Voila Magic; she has a Flightline foal by her side and will be bred back to Star Guitar. He is campaigned by Set-Hut LLC, operated by Keith and Ginger’s friend, ex-NFL quarterback Jake Delhomme, as well as Jake’s father, Jerry, and brother, Jeff. In addition, Jeff Delhomme trains Touchuponastar, and adviser Andrew Cary has helped make the farm a success. With such close connections, Touchuponastar’s New Orleans win was even more significant. “I mean, everyone in the stands, everybody just erupted, because they all knew what just happened as well,” Keith said, adding that there were “just a lot of Louisiana connections that were made to look very good on that day.”
Louisiana’s Horse of the Year in 2023, Touchuponastar has won 15 of 21 starts and earned $1,412,900. And he doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. “He doesn’t show any signs of being done,” Keith said. “I mean, I don’t know if you looked at the race, the replay, but what’s more impressive than the race is what he did when he crossed the finish line. He just kept going. I mean, the jockey was having trouble slowing him down. It’s like he was going to go around again. It was unbelievable.” And Coteau Grove isn’t slowing down, either, as Keith and Ginger plan to board more horses at their property; it looks like the sky is the limit for Coteau Grove.
