SPEEDY Riberac (2.05) rates the best bet on day two of Doncaster's St Leger meeting.

Mark Johnston's five-year-old mare has gone from strength-to-strength this term, putting up a career-best performance at Ascot last time out when brushing aside a field of decent milers.

Unfortunately she had a slight injury after the race and was put on the easy list for a couple of weeks. Now fully recovered, Riberac has a great chance of flying the flag for the fair sex by beating the colts in the Group 3 £40,000 GNER White Rose Stakes.

Johnston, currently at the Keeneland Sales, could be missing out on witnessing a real bonanza for his bang-in-form Middleham stable.

Even before the strongly-fancied Riberac has run, the yard could easily have kicked off proceedings with a winner in the shape of either Penny Pictures (1.30) or Ela d'Argent, bidding to take the opening Ralph Raper Memorial Nursery.

The former, a powerfully-built son of Theatrical, carried the nap vote last time he ran at York, but boiled over at the start and ran like a drain.

Provided Penny Pictures doesn't sweat up in a similar fashion, he has the size and scope to take advantage of a pretty lenient handicap mark.

Neither should Ela d'Argent be ignored. The daughter of Ela Mana-Mou could hardly have been more impressive on her Newcastle debut when waltzing away with an eight-furlong maiden event and is definitely worth an each-way punt.

Double Honour and Royal Rebel are both in the Doncaster Cup at 3.10, setting yet another poser for die-hard supporters of Johnston's stable.

In reality the best options are to leave the race well alone, or back both in small each-way wagers.

The one really on top of his game at present is Double Honour, a valiant runner-up to Persian Punch in the Goodwood Cup, but while Royal Rebel has flopped badly on his latest couple of runs, he won the Group 1 Ascot Gold Cup like a potential champion stayer.