All winners matter but if you're in the hotseat at Michael Owen's Manor House Stables success at local course Chester takes on that extra importance.
What better way, then, for Hugo Palmer, who five weeks ago made the bold move from Newmarket to Manor House Stables, to cement the new partnership with Owen by sending out a big winner at Chester's flagship May meeting?
Palmer, who after bringing 60 with him from Newmarket, is now responsible for nearly 150 horses at Owen's impressive set-up. And one he has inherited just happens to be Solent Gateway, the well-backed 7/1 favourite for the Chester Cup, the most iconic race staged at the course all season.
Of Solent Gateway, whose two wins last term were achieved at Epsom and Chester, Palmer, speaking at a press event from his new base on Monday, said: "What he seems to really like is a quirky track - he runs very well at Epsom and he runs very well at Chester.
"Chester's Classic trials have such a good record over the decades of producing Epsom Classic winners because they face some similar challenges. You have to be well balanced, those tight turns equate well to Tattenham Corner - I know Chester is completely flat and Epsom is far from it.
"You also have the big crowd at Chester and the big crowd on Derby day, there are parallels.
"James Doyle got off him the other day and said up in grade, with more weight on his back, he just didn't quite have the tactical speed to take the gap he needed [when finishing third over a mile and a half] in the Great Metropolitan. He's crying out for that longer trip."
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Solent Gateway needs eight to come out to get a run, but you get the feeling that, were it to go right to the wire, some help may be on hand from stablemate Rajinsky, a recent winner at Ripon, a success which incurred a 3 lb penalty.
Palmer added: "Rajinsky was very tough [when winning at Ripon] and had a good blow afterwards, but not an unduly heavy one. He took the race very well but his chance in the Chester Cup would have been enhanced had he been beaten a short head rather than won by three-quarters of a length because he's got a 3 lb penalty. But he's a big horse, the sort of horse who can carry weight very easily, so we'll see.
"His owner lives in the south and would rather win an Ascot Stakes or Queen Alexandra than a Chester Cup, but nobody on the planet would say no to winning a Chester Cup.
"We'll see how he is in the next ten days but I can't help but feel that Solent Gateway has a much stronger chance getting in at the foot of the weights. If he missed out by one and we ran Rajinsky we might not be doing the right thing!"
Before Chester's three-day feature kicks off next Wednesday there is the not so small matter of the 2000 Guineas, with Palmer and the Manor House Stables team set to be represented by Dubawi Legend at Newmarket on Saturday.
Palmer, who gained the biggest success of his career when Galileo Gold won the 2000 Guineas in 2016, said: "Dubawi Legend has done everything right all year and continues to do so - we've got five nervous days now.
"He was second in the Dewhurst last year. The Dewhurst is normally Europe's leading two-year-old race and the winner of the Dewhurst is normally champion two-year-old and favourite for the 2000 Guineas, which is exactly the case with Native Trail. We finished about two lengths behind him so we've got two lengths to find, but he's filled out, he's grown and he's done really well.
"He had a foreign holiday last year when we went away to the Breeders' Cup. He's got a very sensible, almost bombproof temperament and so it was a real surprise when we went to America and he was on edge.
"He's almost the image of his sire Dubawi who won the Irish Guineas, although he's a bit bigger. I think I've trained everything out of the mare and they've all won, but this is much the best of them.
"We've got to prove we stay a mile but I'm very confident he will and we're very excited about Saturday."
It's also an exciting time for Owen, who recently bought out Andrew Black (who still has Brad The Brief in training at the yard), to take outright ownership of Manor House Stables.
Numbers have already increased with Palmer's arrival and planning is underway to add more boxes.
An enthusiastic Owen said: "We're keen to expand. I've never been so up for it - I'm always up for it anyway and will jump out of bed in the morning, I'm that way inclined - but Hugo will tell you, I'm getting in before him in the morning! I'm just loving it."
He added: "One of the big attractions for Hugo is that we pretty much corner the market up here and it's a bloody wealthy area and a passionate area for racing.
"You could say it's untapped. We're training around 150 horses and I think there's massive scope in the area to push it to another level."
On approaching Palmer to replace Tom Dascombe, Owen said: "I've known Hugo a long time and every time I went down to Newmarket to go racing or to the sales I used to stay at his house, so I know his family. He was a mate, so inevitably when I was looking for a trainer he was one of the people I called to say 'what do you think, who do you think?'
"I used to buy the Racing Post and look down the trainers' table thinking 'impossible to get, impossible to get' and Hugo was one of them.
"I just skipped past as I thought he was set in Newmarket, but when I started asking questions I thought 'is there a little glimmer I could get him?'
"It's pretty exciting, isn't it? I think we've got a nice blend. It would be unfair to label Manor House before Hugo came as just a source of winners as we've got some nice owners and pedigrees. But what I think we've done is marry two things together well. We have a lot of winners at Manor House with two-year-old pedigrees, so we get going quite early. Hugo brought a lot of classic-type pedigrees, so now we've joined forces it's a nice combination."
A combination that might just get off to a flying start at Chester courtesy of Solent Gateway.
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