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Important update on 1476AMWould Autumn Glow have lost to Sheza Alibi in the Doncaster?
Connor Scanlon • April 5th, 2026 11:21 am
Sheza Alibi took out the Group 1 Doncaster Mile (1600m) in style on Saturday, winning the $4 million race by 4.29 lengths.
But what made the victory remarkable was how the Peter Moody & Katherine Coleman-trained filly was able to win from her position in the field.
Jockey Jamie Melham, weighing 49kg, took the bay to the rear end of the field, sitting last ahead of Pericles for majority of the race.
Reacting to the backmarker position which the three-year-old was in during the early to middle stages of the prestigious race, SENTrack’s David Taggart was starting to lose hope for the young gun.
“She’s a long way back here,” Taggart exclaimed on SENTrack's Saturday Trackside.
“Mate, she’s got a lot (to do). She’ll have to be a superstar from here.”
It wasn’t until the 600m mark when Melham made the move to take Sheza Alibi around the entire field of 16 runners – a move which Taggart and Cam Luke weren’t fond of.
Taggart: “Oh, she’s going to be wide, yuck. Look how wide (she is), this is not good. She’s 20 wide!”
Luke: “She can’t win this.”
When the daughter of the Saxon Warrior hit the Randwick straight, she embarrassed the entire field, thrashing her opposition by multiple lengths with the 2025 Group 1 Caulfield Guineas (1600m) winner Autumn Boy running second.
Taggart: “Oh my god, here she comes.”
Luke: “Here comes Sheza Alibi now, how good is she?”
Taggart: “Oh my god, nah, she couldn’t.”
Luke: “She couldn't win it on top of the straight. David Geoffrey Taggart said she can’t win, she’s going to win by six (lengths)!”
Taggart: “Oh my god, what about that. She’s a superstar!”
“When I say she can't win, you don't see horses win like that.
“How many times do I say it? I’ve said it 100 times, and 99 times before I've been right every time.
“She's made a mug of me.
“Wowee, is that one of the best wins you’ve seen?
“Like it’s a little bit different if you're going to peel out like that and go to the outside fence, but they're not doing that. She just went that wide.
“Look how good Autumn Boy is, and she's beaten him by four (lengths). Autumn Boy did no work. She's done all the work and beaten him by four.”
The five-time Group 1 winning jockey even went as far to say that Sheza Alibi would have beaten Australia’s best horse, Autumn Glow, if she would have run in the Doncaster.
Luke wasn't so sure about Taggart's statement, however.
Luke: “She's the second-best horse in the country (behind Autumn Glow).”
“She's a three-year-old filly and she's just embarrassed them.”
Taggart: “She beats Autumn Glow on that.”
Luke: “I don’t know.”
Taggart: “Mate, she’s just won a Doncaster by four lengths, running away from them, and she's gone 100 deep around the turn.”
“Come on, that was just a sit and steer, stand and cheer.
“Wowee, that's blown me away that win.”
Luke: "I'm not saying that Autumn Glow would have won, but I'm not willing to say that she (Sheza Alibi) would have beaten her (Autumn Glow)."
Autumn Glow would have raced in the Doncaster Mile with 56.5kg. Would the undefeated mare have been able to defeat Sheza Alibi?
