“I don’t know,” trainer Gary Capuano said with a laugh and a shrug Saturday afternoon. “I keep saying they’re putting me on the lead. We just had a really good group of two-year-olds this year.”

Nobody on the grounds at Laurel Park is hotter than Capuano with two-year-olds these days, and nobody’s doing better with stakes horses than Brittany Russell. So it stands to reason that the two of them would sweep the top two spots in a pair of juvenile stakes Saturday at Laurel.

Capuano entered this weekend’s racing with 17 wins from 40 starts with two-year-olds this year. And Saturday, one of his juveniles who hadn’t entirely held up her end of the deal – with just one win from seven starts – became a stakes winner.

The Capuano-trained Maryland-bred Doc’s Miracle parlayed what Capuano called a “perfect trip” under jockey Yedsit Hazlewood to rally to a win in the $100,000 Smart Halo Stakes for her second career win and first stakes tally.

The winning margin was three quarters of a length, with the Brittany Russell trainee Prosecco Rita finishing second. It was another three parts of a length back to even-money favorite Just Philtored in third.

Doc’s Miracle paid $11.80 to win and topped an exacta that returned $13.50 for a one-dollar wager. The win pushed Doc’s Miracle’s career bankroll to more than $140,000.

Running time for the six furlongs on a muddy, sealed main track was 1:12.14.

In last month’s Maryland Million Lassie, Doc’s Miracle, leaving from the inside, found herself dueling throughout and just failing to hold when second in a brave effort. Today she had the benefit of being drawn towards the outside of the field.

“She broke good [in the Lassie],” Capuano said. “She broke good, and he kind of had to use her up because she had the inside post. She ran huge: she battled every step of the way, and she did all the hard work and still was able to almost pull It out.”

Today’s race unfolded far differently. Hazlewood was able to settle his mount off the speed, with Prosecco Rita going on to establish the front, zipping a 22.21-second opening quarter-mile and a 45.77-second half. Doc’s Miracle was 3 ½ lengths back at that point and revving up her run while three wide.

Doc’s Miracle collared Prosecco Rita with about a sixteenth of a mile to go, edging away late to the final margin.

One race later, in the James F. Lewis, III Stakes, Russell provided her answer, with Balboa, a newcomer to her barn, earning a dominant 5 ¼-length victory over Capuano’s last-out maiden winner Hollywood Import. Running time for the six furlongs was 1:11.87.

“I mean, he’s a nice horse,” Russell said. “He’s healthy, and I think there’s room for improvement. I think he’s a big, immature horse right now.”

Maybe so, but he was certainly too much for his rivals today. Under jockey Sheldon Russell, Balboa pressed the early pace of Max Capacity, took over nearing the quarter-pole, and drew away smartly to win.

Balboa, owned by a sizable partnership led by SF Racing LLC, began his career in Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert’s Southern California barn, breaking his maiden at second asking at Del Mar in August. Two subsequent forays into Grade 1 company yielded a pair of fifth-place finishes, and then a new barn and the addition of blinkers.

Whether the son of Not This Time will go on to validate his $875,000 auction price is certainly an open question, but he appears to be a horse who can thrive around these parts.

“When they come from Bob and we try them here, you know, it’s easier than what he’s been running against, obviously,” Russell said. “But still, he had to put his running shoes on today and do the job. So the way he did it, that’s what you need to see.”

There was no such gaudy purchase price, and expectations were certainly more measured, for Doc’s Miracle. She is the first stakes winner by sire Long River and is out of the stakes-winning Archarcharch mare Hailey’s Flip. She’s a homebred for Daniel Crowley and Non Stop Stable.

“Since she broke her maiden at Timonium [in August], she’s really turned it around,” Capuano said. “She’s just a professional. She’s done everything right. She just keeps improving.”