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By Ray Hickson Rachel King makes no secret of her ambition to be Sydney’s champion apprentice this season. And, with most of the city’s leading riders interstate for the next month, now is the time King hopes she can start her run toward the title. The 27-year-old, under the guidance of Gai Waterhouse, was the leading provincial apprentice last season and finished second in the metro title behind Andrew Adkins with 25 city wins. With a quarter of the season over, King has seven city wins (one ahead of Lee Magorrian) to be the early front runner. “I had that bit of momentum up from last season but before Melbourne the bigger jockeys are in Sydney which makes it a bit harder,’’ King said. “But now they are away again it opens up a few more doors. I've spoken to Gai about it and she's said the same. “She's very good with her apprentices, the whole way through she's guided me. If you don't take advice from her you're pretty silly. “Sometimes she'll see you're getting itchy feet wanting to ride a bit more and says to be patient and they will come. And they always do.’’ King has 19 wins remaining to outride her metro claim and knows if she achieves that prior to the end of the season it will go a long way to winning her that premiership. She has three rides for the Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott stable across Canterbury on Friday night and Randwick on Saturday with last start winner Madonnica her leading chance. Madonnica caused a minor upset when she won at Canterbury first-up earlier this month and is a $4.80 chance as she faces three rivals in the Bondi Pizza Handicap (1200m). “Last preparation I rode her a lot and she's tiny but she has a big heart. But she was always that little bit weak,’’ King said. “She was running the same race to the furlong but couldn't finish off. I thought from her work that she's strengthened up this preparation but she still surprised me a little. “She has a lot of character and you can tell from that race it's definitely brought her confidence levels up.’’ Madonnica leads all the way to win at Canterbury - October 18 At Randwick on Saturday, King is expecting a sharp improvement from Just Dreaming in the Ford Civil Contracting Handicap (1500m) after she was beaten into 11th place when resuming on October 7. The four-year-old won on a heavy track at Rosehill in June and prior to that win King also rode the Kris Lees-trained mare to victory at the same track. She said while Just Dreaming was well beaten first-up at Randwick it was a run she had to have and from a better gate on Saturday she should be more prominent. “It didn't look a great run but she felt amazing. She was so fresh and it was a good race to get that little bit of gas out of her,’’ she said. “She drew the car park and there wasn't much we could do about it. We'll be able to keep her comfortable, she's quite happy to lead if you want her to and she is very tough.’’ Just Dreaming is an $8.50 chance with TAB Fixed Odds. Check out all the form and replays for Saturday's meeting at Royal Randwick