SATURDAY winners are all-important to trainers. It shows the stable has horses good enough to compete for the bigger prizes as well as the less talented ones who provide the bread-and-butter offerings from Monday to Friday.

Winning a major prize attracts public attention and Alan King knows that only too well. For the past two years he has been lacking star quality and has had to watch with a degree of jeolously as the likes of Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson grabbed the majority of the spotlight.

However, King is back where he belongs after West End Rocker’s big-margin victory in the Becher Chase at Aintree early this month and a fortnight later saddling Raya Star to land The Ladbroke at Ascot.

He has good chances at Newbury today with Walkon, Vendor and Quotica De Poyans.

The last named has top weight in the Betfred Mandarin Handicap Chase which does not carry the same prestige of former years but is still worth winning.

Quotica De Poyans was bought for £75,000 in the spring from the point-to-point field of Simon Shirley-Beavan, based in the Scottish Borders, for whom he won eight races – including four hunter-chases at Kelso – and he fell on his other two appearances.

The gelding ran well on his first start for King at Bangor in a first-time tongue-tie and would probably have beaten Chapolimoss but for an awkward jump at the last.

It was his first try in a handicap and his jumping was far from perfect, but it was his first outing for 250 days and he will have improved for the experience.