Four trainers shortlisted for Victorian racing’s top honour
Racing Victoria has announced the four finalists for the 2025-26 Most Outstanding Training Performance award, with the winner to be crowned at Saturday night’s Victorian Racing Awards.
The shortlist features Cindy Alderson, Henry Dwyer, Tony and Calvin McEvoy, and Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman, recognising outstanding achievements throughout the Victorian racing season, including performances interstate and overseas.
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Among the finalists, Alderson is nominated following the outstanding campaign of Jigsaw, while Dwyer is recognised for guiding star sprinter Asfoora to another successful international campaign. The McEvoy stable earned its place after the remarkable season of Melbourne Cup winner Half Yours, while Moody and Coleman are finalists thanks to the exploits of elite mare Sheza Alibi.
The Most Outstanding Training Performance award is one of the headline honours of the evening, alongside the presentation of the 31st Scobie Breasley Medal, which celebrates excellence in race riding across Victoria.
The prestigious award is voted on by a panel of racing officials, journalists and broadcasters and recognises excellence by a Victorian-licensed trainer or training partnership across the 2025-26 season.
The winner will be announced during the Victorian Racing Awards, where the Scobie Breasley Medal and several other major honours will also be presented. The ceremony will be live streamed across Racing.com’s digital platforms and hosted by Jason Richardson.
Nominated trainers:
The four trainers or training partnerships that are nominated are:
Cindy Alderson
Cindy Alderson, whose father Colin was an esteemed trainer for five decades, enjoyed remarkable success last season with her evergreen sprinter Jigsaw, who tasted defeat just once in eight starts.
Bred by Alderson’s mother Lynne, seven-year-old Jigsaw kicked off his scintillating season with a spring hat-trick in Victoria that culminated in the $1 million The Meteorite (1200m) at Cranbourne.
Alderson and Jigsaw then travelled across the Tasman to claim their maiden Group 1 success in the Railway Stakes (1200m) at Ellerslie (in NZ racing) in January, before returning to claim a home state Group 1 in the William Reid Stakes (1200m) at Caulfield.
The journey didn’t end there with Jigsaw travelling across the Nullarbor to Perth where he claimed the $5 million The Quokka (1200m) in April to cap a fairytale season for horse and trainer.
Henry Dwyer
Henry Dwyer’s European adventure with Asfoora went to new heights last season, as his globetrotting mare carried her tally of Group 1 victories to three on her way to being crowned Europe’s champion sprinter at the 2025 Cartier Racing Awards in London.
Having tasted Royal Ascot success in 2024, Dwyer opted to campaign the daughter of Flying Artie exclusively in Europe and the Ballarat horseman was rewarded for his bold approach.
The first came courtesy of the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes (1000m) at York (UK), where Asfoora raced prominently before pulling clear of her rivals to again put Dwyer’s name up in lights.
Asfoora then crossed the English Channel to become the first Australian-trained winner in France when scoring a dramatic win in the Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp (1000m).
Tony and Calvin McEvoy
Team McEvoy won acclaim for their training performance in guiding tried horse Half Yours to become the 13th horse in history to claim the coveted Cups double in 2025.
The son of unheralded stallion St Jean earned a shot at the Caulfield Cup (2400m) with an emphatic win in the Naturalism Stakes (2000m) in late September, and after surging home from the back of the pack to finish fourth behind Sir Delius in the Group 1 Turnbull Stakes (2000m), Half Yours went into the Caulfield Cup as the red-hot favourite.
Under a calculating ride by Jamie Melham, Half Yours pierced his way through the pack to ensure a first Caulfield Cup win for Tony McEvoy, who was joined on the training ticket by his son Calvin in 2019.
The father and son team then became household names at Flemington on the first Tuesday in November as Half Yours made light of a two-kilogram penalty to cap a meteoric rise from a Seymour benchmark win six months earlier.
Peter Moody & Katherine Coleman
Peter Moody will forever be remembered as the trainer who oversaw Black Caviar’s unbeaten career, but in Sheza Alibi the Pakenham trainer may just have found his next great horse.
The filly was sent to Moody and training partner Katherine Coleman by Queensland farmer Fred Noffke, who paid just $10,000 for the daughter of Saxon Warrior, and under their tutelage won five Stakes races during the 2025-26 season.
Home state victories in the Vanity Stakes (1400m), the Sandown Guineas (1600m) and the Angus Armanasco Stakes (1400m) spoke volumes of her talent, but it was her stellar performances over the Randwick mile in the autumn of 2026 that really cemented Sheza Alibi’s status as a potential superstar.
After accounting for the colts in the Group 1 Randwick Guineas (1600m), her trainers had her peaking in the Doncaster Mile (1600m) where she came from near last to trounce her older rivals by more than four lengths.
