Winx, Black Caviar and Autumn Glow: Why Sheza Alibi owner is backing his star

Fred Noffke doesn’t profess to be a racing expert, but he knows and believes in his dream horse, Sheza Alibi.

The Queensland cattle farmer, who paid just $10,000 for Sheza Alibi as a weanling online, thinks the four-year-old “could be a Black Caviar”, that she will win as much money as Winx and is the best horse in the country.

And, importantly for Saturday, when Sheza Alibi takes on Autumn Glow at Randwick in the group 1 Winx Stakes (1400m), Noffke believes she can’t wait to show again just how good she is.

The first showdown between Autumn Glow, unbeaten until rising to 2000m last start in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes, and Sheza Alibi has been the most anticipated in racing since Noffke’s wonder horse dominated the Randwick Guineas and Doncaster Mile in the autumn.

The clash has come earlier than expected, after Sheza Alibi changed course from resuming in next week’s Memsie Stakes at Caulfield, but it can’t come soon enough for Noffke, or his mare. He believes she is ready to repeat her Doncaster performance, when she came from last to win by more than four lengths.

“I saw her up on Stradbroke weekend, and she kicked and farted like I’ve never seen,” Noffke said of Sheza Alibi while she spelled at Beaudesert.

“She’s normally just so calm and collected, and I just knew then ... this might sound a bit airy fairy, but I think the Doncaster taught her that she’s a racehorse, and she liked the feeling.

“She surprised herself and now she just wants to do it again. I can just see it in her.

“She just can’t wait for someone to say, ‘Here, whack, whack, let’s go’.”

Before the change in plans, Noffke was already heading south for stallion parades in the Upper Hunter on Sunday, then staying on for Thursday night’s NSW and Australian racing awards at Randwick. He said throwing in a race against Autumn Glow, and 11 other group 1 winners, became a must.

“I actually pressured him,” he said of talking to co-trainer Peter Moody.

“I could see by the videos he was sending me that she was desperate to go racing. I’m not telling Peter his job. I just had a sense she was keen, she has to go racing somewhere.

“He put the idea up first, and then I just watched her. I know how she reacts.

“Probably,” he said of the Memsie being an easier option, “but they get hurt in the box. I said to Peter, ‘If she’s right to go, we’ve just got to race her’.