Steve aiming Skye High with his dual-gaited mare

“Patience is a virtue” might be a well-worn saying, but central Victorian harness racing trainer Steve Owen has taken it to the extreme – and is now reaping the rewards.

After more than a year of persistence, trial and error, and refusing to give up, Owen believes he’s finally unlocked the key to his enigmatic dual-gaited mare Always Skye High (Always B Miki).

“I would have been playing around with her for 12 months to get to this point – but I was never going to give up,” Owen, of Mount Camel near Bendigo, said.

Always Skye High’s career has been anything but straightforward.

The seven-year-old, now with four wins to her name, is showing genuine promise as a square-gaiter but recorded her first win – as a pacer – for trainer-driver David Murphy in 2023.

Murphy gave her only three more pacing runs before converting her to the trotting gait later in the same year. She quickly recorded two wins at Terang and Geelong, and Murphy gave her another 13 starts for placings at Ballarat and Melton before Owen took over the mare’s training late in 2024.

“About a fortnight after I got her off (Ballarat trainer) David Murphy, all she wanted to do was pace. It was a bit of a worry,” Owen admitted.

“I put her in a race at Bendigo and she paced in the score-up, took no part and got stood down for a trial,” he said.

“At her next start over a fortnight later I actually switched her back to racing as a pacer and despite running eighth, she went much better going down by 21 metres in two minutes,” he said.

“It was then I decided to put her out for a long spell in the hope she’d get out of it, and I could concentrate on racing her as a trotter.

“But after seven months away she came back with her bad habits and just kept pacing up to the mobile at the start of the races. Pacing, pacing, pacing- that’s all she wanted to do!”

That’s when Owen knew something had to change.

“I just thought that I’ve got to do something different if she’s going to be a trotter.

“So I tried a number of things and hopefully my latest approach of not training her in a sulky at home is the key,” he said.

“For the past seven weeks I’ve been leading her off a car. I felt she didn’t understand what I wanted her to do. So when she paced I completely came to a stop, growled at her and then walked off again.

“Even with her fastwork, I still lead her from the car. She’s won three trials and her win last week was very good.”

Owen produced a confident drive to score a 10-metre victory in the Oxley Feed Mill Trot. Settling handy, Always Skye High enjoyed the run of the race before Owen made his move with 450 metres to go, launching three and four-wide. The mare quickly dashed clear to win in a rate of 2:03.

“I’ll try and save her for one run at the end in future because she came home in 59.3 seconds,” a jubilant Owen said.

Always Skye High will step up in grade from barrier three in race seven at Bendigo tomorrow night.

Check the Bendigo fields here: https://www.harness.au/racing/2026-03-25/bendigo/BN250326/meeting/fields

“It’s a sharp rise in class, but I’ll be happy if she just does everything right,” he said.

Owen’s journey in the sport dates back more than three decades, beginning during his time as caretaker at the Canberra club.

“They didn’t have trotters’ races there, and back then, probably over 30 years ago, I had a reasonable one called Electric Angel (Classic Adam). So I raced at Goulburn when they re-opened for a bit,” he said.

“She was pacing bred but out of a trotting mare. I gave her to a friend for a little while and he won at Penrith and ran third at Harold Park.

“Then I moved to Melbourne and was based at Epping. She was very quick away in standing starts and Nigel Milne won two on her.

“Electric Angel was my best, but I just have a feeling that Always Skye High might pass her because of her staying ability.

“I’m 68 years old next month so the one I’m racing at the moment might be my last. But you never know do you!”

From Terry Gange for Harnesslink