Salvator Mile tough to figure

The Grade 3 Salvator Mile at Monmouth Park on Saturday is a complicated race, but then again, this game was never meant to be easy.

Two of the top players in the nine-horse field are coming off long layoffs. Three-time stakes winner Majestic Affair hasn’t been out in a year for Chad Brown, and the Todd Pletchertrained Far From Over, a winner of three of his four starts, will be returning from a 10-month layoff, the second lengthy absence of his career.

It’s difficult to tell how Classy Class will handle the two turns of the $100,000 Salvator. The Kiaran McLaughlin trainee finished third in both the Withers and Gotham stakes in 2015 and did win going 1 1/16 miles at Belmont Park in May of that year, but he has sprinted in 10 of his 11 starts since then.

And then there’s El Kabeir, who closed stoutly going seven furlongs at Gulfstream Park in March while making his first start for Bill Mott. He didn’t replicate that performance in the Grade 2 Churchill Downs over a difficult, wet track on Derby Day but he has every reason to bounce back here. The thing is that he hasn’t won since November 2015.

While the aforementioned runners will be traveling from New York, Name Changer will make a six-mile van ride from owner Richard Santulli’s Colts Neck Stables training center. Name Changer, trained by Alan Goldberg, won his final two starts at age 3 in 2016, including the Richard W. Small Stakes at Laurel.

In his first start this year, Name Changer finished fourth, nosed out for third, in the Grade 3 Pimlico Special behind one of the top older horses in training, Shaman Ghost, and his Jimmy Jerkens-trained stablemate Dolphus, a half-brother to Rachel Alexandra who ran an excellent race that day.

“That was a tough spot to bring him back in, but there aren’t a whole lot of races around for horses like this,” Goldberg said. “It was either that or wait two weeks and go to Penn National for the Mountainview, so we ran.”

Name Changer, a son of Uncle Mo out of four-time stakes winner Cash’s Girl, likely will be overlooked in the Salvator Mile betting, but he is 4 for 10 and looks like a horse whose best races may be ahead of him.

“The mile is a little short for him, but I think he fits the race,” Goldberg said. “We’re hoping to have a good, productive year with him.”

With Classy Class, Majestic Affair, and Red Dragon Tattoo, who is 3 for 4 for Parx Racingbased Carlos Guerrero, in the field, the early pace should be legitimate. That could set up the race for Name Changer, El Kabeir, or Far From Over, who all figure to do their best running in the final quarter-mile.

It should be noted that Pletcher also has Donegal Moon in the race. In his lone start at Monmouth, Donegal Moon won the Grade 3 Pegasus last year. He was off for nine months after that race, has made two starts this season, and will be a midpriced longshot.