As much as trainer Ned Allard wanted get Grade 3 winner Alogon started on his seasonal debut in early May, the routine he has generally followed for the 7-year-old gelding for the past several years, there were concessions to age that had to be made this time.

So the Kentucky-bred son of California Chrome will make his belated 2026 start at Monmouth Park in Sunday’s $100,000 Get Serious Stakes at five furlongs on the grass, taking on five other 3-year-olds and up (Nothing Better, among the original entries, raced instead at Penn National on Thursday).

In addition to the Get Serious Stakes, the co-feature on the eight-race card is the $100,000 Lady’s Secret Stakes at a mile and a sixteenth for fillies and mares, 3 and up.

“I brought him back a little later this year. To get him right it took a month longer than it has the past couple of years,” Allard said of Alogon. “I guess it is because he is 7 years old. It took him a little longer to get back.”

Despite the delay – Alogon has not raced since winning the Grade 3 Belmont Turf Sprint last Sept. 27 – Allard said the horse “is back and he is feeling super.”

“He completely turned the corner about a month ago,” said the 80-year-old Allard, who started his training career in 1971. “He has been training dynamite since then. It just took him a little longer to get back to the races than it has in the past.”

A winner of $633,799 lifetime, Alogon has seven career victories – all on the turf, and from 20 starts there.

He was third in the Grade 1 Jaipur at Saratoga a year ago, and was third in the Get Serious Stakes at Monmouth Park in 2023, the same year he won the Wolf Hill Stakes on the Haskell Stakes undercard.

“He’s just a really nice horse,” said Allard. “I have put him in some tough races and he has responded. He is almost always competitive.”

The career arc for Alogon changed two races into his 3-year-old campaign in 2022, when he raced twice on the dirt at Oaklawn Park (he was unraced at 2) and was beaten a combined 66-plus lengths.

That’s when owner-breeder Charles T. Matses moved the horse from trainer Danny Peitz for Allard to see what he could do with him.

“Why Charlie didn’t send him to me to begin with I’m not sure,” said Allard. “But he ended up sending him to me and I told him then `you are missing the boat with this horse. This horse wants to sprint and he wants the grass.’ I knew that because I trained 90 percent of his family.”

From those 20 career turf starts he has seven wins, three seconds and six thirds. Allard said he would have gone on with Alogon last year after the Belmont Turf Sprint win but there were almost no grass options left in the Northeast left for him.

“I didn’t want to send him to California just for a race or two,” he said. “So we did the best thing for the horse and gave him time off.”

Almost nine full months later, he’s back.

“He runs really well fresh,” said Allard, who trained Hall of Famer and 1985 Eclipse Award Champion Filly Sprinter Mom’s Command. “It’s not an easy race by any means. (Jockey) Forest Boyce has been riding super for me so I am looking forward to the race. I feel really good about his chances on Sunday.”

The biggest threat to Alogon making a successful return is probably the George Weaver-trained Governor Sam, a Grade 3 winner who has earned $821,848 from just 15 career starts. The 4-year-old gelding comes in off an eighth-place finish in the Grade 1 Jaipur on June 6 at Saratoga,