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Wayne Waltisbuhl has been involved in harness racing from an early age, a legacy he inherited from his father, Ritchie.

Ritchie was the consummate horseman, a natural in the saddle, gig or alongside his beloved horses. His was a horseman who competed in rodeo’s, worked stock, broke in and handled young horses with the ease that becomes a true horseman. Ritchie was also a successful harness trainer/driver. He won his first four races straight when he was only 10 and that was when Standarbreds were competing under saddle.

Wayne’s mother Elaine was also a competitive horsewoman, who engaged in the more elegant sport of Dressage. She was always on hand to assist with the harness horses and broodmare stock that the family was caring for or competing with at the time.

Wayne Begins Racing

Wayne competed in his first drive on a horse called Mission Parade at the tender young age of 16. He drove his first winner shortly after, and under the watchful eye of his Dad, soon developed the skills and knowledge required to be a successful competitor in the Harness Racing game.

With numerous wins and placing's to his credit, Wayne has competed in three major racing states of Australia successfully and is a well know horseman in all three. Many horses have passed through his gentle hands, Wahine Girl, Nero’s Fire, Three Half Whites, Praiseable, Rorschach and White Fire are some of the favourites. Nero’s Fire 1:57.5, Praiseable 1:55.9, Rorschach 1:58.6 and White Fire 1:58.0 and Three Half Whites 1:56.4 (who was then sold to Melbourne and bettered that time to 1:56.1!) have all recorded personal best times under Wayne's care.

Establishing His Breeding Programme

Always having a soft spot for the skewbald pacers, Wayne purchased his first foundation skewbald mare Horse in Pyjamas – don’t you just love that name! – during the early 90’s. Several more mares followed, and at that time Wayne was the largest breeder of skewbald pacer in the world with a brood stock of eight mares! At this stage the skewbald pacers were on the brink of extinction with only about 30 viable breeders on the ground.

Taking the plight of this much maligned style of pacer to heart, Wayne set about developing his breeding programme to improve the line of the skewbald pacer and bring them to the forefront of harness racing and to fulfil an ambition to see the world's first skewbald race!.

Wayne did a lot of pedigree research and coupled together with his profound knowledge of horses and racing, based his initial breeding programme on the well performed Snowtime line. Several years of matings to well performed stallions and constant updating of stock, finally brought fruition to his dream with the birth of Rorschach.

Rorschach’s great stamina and tough wins earned him a legion of fans both in Australia and overseas generating a renewed interest in the skewbald pacer. With 10 wins and 22 placing’s to his credit Rorschach set alight the world of harness racing, and as a memorial to his racing ability earned a Horse of the Year title and Redcliffe Paceway boasts a wall mural of this colourful son of Preux Chevalier.

With the success of Rorschach, Wayne set about refining his breeding programme, always on the look out to improve stock lines and performance times for all the horses in his stable so that he may present to the world the greatest skewbald pacers ever to grace a racetrack. Several skewbald pacing stock have already been exported to Ireland and the UK. These horses have delighted their new owners and performed to expectations.

Breeding and Training Centre

Wayne has established a breeding and training centre in Queensland, Australia. He has taken a bare property and built it to suit his needs. The property now consists of a training track, lengthy swim, hectares of irrigated pasture, round yard and crush and a large barn with roomy walk-in walk-out boxes. All facilities have been constructed to maximise the health and safety of all stock bred and trained at the AQIS approved quarantine facility.