It took a little experimenting by trainer Phillip Capuano, and the natural maturation process by Mopo, but the 32-year-old conditioner thinks he has figured out the key to success for his 4-year-old filly.

It’s sprinting on the grass.

Saturday at Monmouth Park, Mopo will look to take another significant step forward in her career when she tries open stakes company for the first time in the featured $100,000 Incredible Revenge Stakes at 5½ furlongs on the grass.

After battling seconditis last year – six seconds in her nine starts – Mopo has two wins and a second in her three starts this year, with her most recent victory coming in the restricted Jameela Stakes at Laurel in her first career stakes try.

The Incredible Revenge has attracted a field of nine (plus MTO entrant She’s a Gamer).

“With her, it was mainly about cutting her back in distance,” said Capuano, the son of long-time Maryland-based trainer Gary Capuano. “She still trains like she can run a route of ground, but I think shortening her up and giving her a target to run at has been the biggest difference.

“She’s also bigger and stronger this year than she was at 3. She has matured a lot. It has been a natural thing you like to see in a nice horse as they go from 2 to 3 and 3 to 4. There has been a lot of maturing on her end.”

For Capuano, also Maryland based, this weekend will mark his first trip to Monmouth Park since he went out on his own in 2023. He will also send out Dale’s Bluff in the third race on Sunday and Matthew’s Ticket, a Jersey-bred, in the seventh race later that day. Those races are also scheduled for 5½ furlongs on the grass.

Mopo, though, is the rising star in his stable. Owned by TV Personality and talk show host Maury Povich’s Mopo Racing (as is Matthew’s Ticket), she has missed the board just once in 10 career grass tries. That happened in her last start at 3, going a mile and an eighth on the grass, when she was fifth in open allowance company.

“You could tell she was ready for a break,” said Capuano. “It was probably her worst race by far since getting her on the turf.”

A Maryland-bred daughter of Great Notion, Mopo started her career with two dirt races. It has been all turf since then, with Capuano racing her last year at a mile, a mile and a sixteenth and a mile and an eighth. The one time he tried her sprinting on the grass she was second.

But even going long she was always right there with those six seconds.

“It was frustrating to run all of those seconds,” said Capuano. “At the same time she was a 3-year-old running against older, more experienced horses. We were getting a weight allowance but it’s still tough as a 3-year-old running against older horses. When she broke her maiden last year at Pimlico that was really the tell-tale sign that she was going to end up being a pretty nice horse.”

Edwin Gonzalez is listed to ride, with Gonzalez’s occasional appearances at Monmouth Park resulting in seven wins from 16 mounts.

Capuano said he has “eight or nine” horses for Povich, who transferred his horses to him after Dale Capuano, Phillip’s uncle, retired in 2022.

Mopo has turned out to be the second-highest earner for Capuano since he went out on his own with $203,350. She has a 3-7-0 line from 12 career starts. He said her last start was “probably the best race of her career.”

“Based on the way she trains in the morning and works, she acts like she will run all day,” said Capuano. “Right now, sprinting has worked out better for her so we’ll keep running her at sprint distances.

“But I do think she is versatile enough to do anything.”