After his 1997 Belmont Stakes win, Touch Gold was sent to rest in California in order to allow his sore hoof time to heal. He eventually returned to win that year's Grade I Haskell Invitational Handicap at Monmouth Park but in the fall's Breeders' Cup Classic, he finished ninth and last. At age four in 1998, he raced four times, only going back to the track at the end of June when he won a one-mile allowance race at Churchill Downs in a time of 1:34, one fifth of a second off the track record. His next best result came in October when he finished second in the Fayette Stakes. In the Breeders' Cup Classic, he finished eighth in a ten-horse field.