A cut above the rest

Words Emily Pattullo

The 2023 shearing competition season is now over and it’s been a huge success for Toa Henderson who has had 11 wins in total, including Warkworth, Kumeu and Waitomo. But that’s not all, he also came second in the North Island Sheep Shearer of the Year, and second in the New Zealand Shearing Championships, which took place on the first weekend of April.

Toa has been shearing sheep all his life. He grew up on a farm in Kaiwaka and comes from a family of shearers. Having started out competing at a young age and discovering he did well in the lower grades, he then went to Australia for ten years. On returning home, he entered the Warkworth A&P Show in 2019 and won the Open Final, and so “got the bug back again”. Since then he has been one to watch.

The end of that year was a devastating one and nearly put an end to Toa’s shearing career, when his 18-month-old son was struck and killed by a vehicle in Southland shearing town, Mataura, on 21 December 2019. Initially unable to shear for some time afterwards, he credits his wife, Phoebe, for supporting and encouraging him back onto the shearing circuit.

Toa now lives with his wife and two children in Wellsford, and has his sights firmly set on winning the Golden Shears next season, which he says has “always been a dream of mine. It is what any shearer wants to achieve and it is my lifetime goal”.

In the ‘off’ season Toa can be found working as a shearing contractor as well as doing other farm work and tree planting. But is there ever an off season when your dream is so close to being achieved? Only time will tell.