Darin Gantt

CHARLOTTEJake Delhommeknows a little something about dramatic finishes and historic upsets from unlikely sources.

But he didn't realize Saturday was going to be another one for him. And honestly, there was no reason to expect it.

But in horse racing, as in football and life, sometimes the unexpected happens.

The former Panthers quarterback and longtime thoroughbred trainer got "the biggest win of our career, easily," in Saturday's New Orleans Classic at the Fair Grounds, when his Touchuponastar (with jockey Timothy Thornton aboard) won in 1:48.10.

But it wasn't his time, as much as the field he was running against.

See, Touchuponastar is a 6-year-old gelding (meaning there are no stud fees in his future, just racing), for which Delhomme paid $15,000 at the yearling sale five years ago.

The horse that came in third Saturday was Sierra Leone, who won the Breeders Cup Classic last year, and was purchased for $2.3 million. (The second-place horse, Hall Of Fame, sold for $1.4 million.)

Delhomme compared the annual sale to the NFL Draft, and joked that made Touchuponastar "undrafted" just like he was. That didn't keep them from a $300,000 prize for the win.

Touchuponastar might have been punching over his weight, but that doesn't mean he's not capable of a knockout.

But this wasn't just an upset, this was Delhomme and the Panthers going into St. Louis and beating Hall of Famers Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk, Orlando Pace, and Isaac Bruce and the Rams in the 2003 playoffs in double overtime.

Asked if there was any reason to expect this kind of result, Delhomme just laughed.

"No, he said casually. "I mean, that was the best horse in the world last year. Now, it was his first race this year, and he hasn't run since November, so he probably wasn't 100 percent."

Then, channeling his old coach John Fox, he quickly put it in perspective.

"But, it is what it is," Delhomme said. "It counts."

The upset was huge news in racing circles, as Touchuponastar was the lead story in Monday's Thoroughbred Daily News, an industry newsletter, putting him and Delhomme right at the top of the page alongside legendary trainer Bob Baffert.

As soon as the result was posted Saturday, Delhomme started hearing from a ton of friends and former co-workers, including former general manager Marty Hurney (who just bought a few horses and raced for the first time recently), Bills GM Brandon Beane, along with Luke Kuechly, Jeff King, and many others.

"My phone was blowing up," he said.

It was the extension of a good week for Delhomme, who also has a promising 3-year-old filly named Kalil in honor of his former center Ryan Kalil that won last Wednesday.

"We named her Kalil for a reason," he said of the filly. "We shouldn't have been able to buy her for what we did, just like we should have never been able to draft an All-Pro center in the late second round. And the same way he didn't really become dominant until his second year, we thought she was going to be great at first, and it's taking a minute, but now she's hitting her stride."