Photos: Maree Wilkinson
Recognised as the top rural sportswomen of the year at the 2025 New Zealand Rural Sports Awards, Stephanie Dryfhout, Samantha Ottley and Catherine Mullooly are ambitious athletes setting records here and abroad. Talking to the Weekly, they share how they got to the top and what drives them to keep going.
Stephanie Dryfhout – tree climber
It has been a remarkable 12 months for competitive tree climber Stephanie Dryfhout. She has won two national titles and finally scooped the top spot at the world championships after five years of disappointment.
On March 7, her efforts were rewarded at the 2025 Rural Sports Awards, where she was named Rural Sportswoman of the Year – and received the Rural Sports Supreme Award.
“I thought I had a chance at winning sportswoman, but I hadn’t even considered I would win sportsperson of the year. That was a crazy moment,” Steph enthuses. “Everybody at my table was just cheering, and I felt quite overwhelmed.”
By day, the humble 29-year-old is an arborist in Tauranga, a career she discovered after initially feeling lost without a purpose after graduating high school.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I just liked playing sports,” remembers Steph, who found herself working in a tree nursery for three years hoping to find out what her passion was.
Then watching a video of an arborist at work, she realised she could combine her love of sport and environmentalism.
“I had a light-bulb moment, and I thought, ‘That’s what I want to do.’ I didn’t even know it was a job!
“It’s great being around people who care about the environment, and I am always encouraging people to take care of their trees instead of cutting them down.”
While studying at Wintec in 2017 to become an arborist, Steph’s teachers and classmates recognised her enthusiasm and encouraged her to enter a tree climbing competition. She was immediately hooked.
“I’ve always been competitive, I liked that my job could be turned into a competition. I’d study during the day, then go and climb after work until it got dark.”
Her passion helped her quickly rise to the top of the sport. Since 2018, Steph has remained undefeated as the New Zealand women’s national champion. But the world title always remained elusive.
In 2019, Steph earned a spot at the prestigious International Tree Climbing Championship (ITCC).
She travelled to Knoxville, USA, to compete against 29 of the best female climbers from around the globe. She finished in second place, something that is one of the highlights of her climbing career.
“It was actually the first international competition I went to – and I came second! Admittedly, I felt disappointed at the time. But now I look back on it, that’s a pretty crazy thing to do on your very first try.”
Coming so close on her first attempt, Steph knew the top spot was well within her reach. But as she put more pressure on herself each year, she fell further down the leaderboard.
Her most disappointing result came in 2023 when she finished in fifth place and missed the final round by one spot.
“I was disheartened. I wanted to win so badly that I ended up making silly mistakes.”
She took some time to reflect. Coming into the championships the following year, Steph decided she just needed to forget about the results and remember why it was that she just loved the sport in the first place.
“I focused on winning for too long, I just wanted to go and do the best that I could. If I left feeling like I couldn’t have climbed any better, then I’d have been happy.”
The initial round of a tree-climbing competition features a range of climbs that are designed to test specific skills including speed, aerial rescue and head-to-head ascent. Steph finished in the top three in all but one category, securing her spot in the Masters Challenge, where the winner is decided.
In the final round, climbers must ring four bells placed throughout a tree. Each competitor designs their route, demonstrating as many of their different abilities as possible to impress the judges.
Steph was confident in her performance, but it wasn’t until they announced six-time winner and the defending champion, Britain’s Josephine Hedger, in second place, that she realised she had finally achieved her dream.
“Everyone was cheering and yelling. It was just awesome,” she beams.
In October this year, Christchurch will play host to the ITCC. Not only is Steph excited about the opportunity to defend her title on home soil, but it means her parents, Marius and Leanne, can cheer her on in person.
“They are proud of me. They are supportive and come to competitions when they can, but this is the first time they will see me compete in the world champs.
“It would be nice to win back-to-back titles, especially in New Zealand. But I’m trying not to put too much pressure on it!”
Samantha Ottley – harness racer
For as long as she can remember, champion harness racer Samantha Ottley’s life has revolved around horses. So, it’s no surprise that she has since become the country’s most successful woman in the sport.
“Mum and I always joked that I had no choice and I was born into it,” the 34-year-old says with a laugh. “When you are brought up around horses, you have a love for them from the get-go.”
Sam’s mum Denise, 61, is a horse trainer and owns several racehorses. From the moment she was old enough to ride, Sam has been in the saddle. She started in pony shows as a child, then graduated to show jumping. However, her dream was always to be a harness racer.
At 18, the Christchurch local entered her first race. It was an auspicious start to a dazzling career.
“My first drive was on my 18th birthday, and it was a winner. Mum trained and owned that horse, so that was special. It’s still one of the highlights of my career.”
The two-time Rural Sportswoman of the Year nominee was the first woman to win 700 career races, is consistently ranked in New Zealand’s top 10 drivers, and in 2024, she made history as the first woman to win 100 races in a season.
Heading into the year, Sam had set herself the lofty goal. She had a stellar year and, with only six races left in the season, Sam was five wins away from glory. She believed in herself, but says that even the best riders can go weeks without a win.
But she needn’t have worried. On Boxing Day, Sam won five races and hit the magic number.
“It is a big thing to drive that many winners in a day. I never imagined I’d get my 100th win like I did. It was a pinch-yourself moment.”
Though the big moments are thrilling, Sam admits that the most memorable race of her record-setting season came a few days later when she rode one of her last wins of the year for her mum.
“Driving the 100 was special, but driving a winner for my mum, who doesn’t own many horses, was a big highlight.
“My mum is my biggest supporter. It’s always just been the two of us – and she has worked very hard for me to be able to do what I do.”
Catherine Mullooly – sheep shearer
It has been one year since Gisborne local Catherine Mullooly broke a shearing world record. Despite her pride in her achievement, the mum-of-two admits it still doesn’t feel real.
“It’s a bit mind-blowing to me, it still hasn’t sunk in. The whole record experience has been overwhelming.”
Catherine has been a champion shearer since she started competing 15 years ago. But it was motherhood that motivated her to get her name in the record books.
Catherine and her partner Ardy Donnelly, 31, welcomed their two boys, Bryn and Cole, in the space of two years. By the time Cole was born, it had been four years since Catherine had picked up a pair of shears.
“I loved having my kids, but I was struggling mentally. I needed to find myself again.”
In the months after Cole was born, Catherine was inspired by a group of female shearers who were on a mission to set records. She decided she wanted in on the action.
The Rural Sportswoman of the Year nominee trained rigorously for eight months. On January 10 last year, more than 200 supporters gathered at Nukuhakari Station near Te Kūiti, to watch Catherine tackle the 386 ewe record.
Despite her preparation, the 35-year-old admits her nerves almost got the better of her.
“I’m someone that naturally has a lot of self-doubt. I felt worried about letting down my friends as well as my family.”
Catherine surpassed the record with more than an hour to go. With her final tally of 465 ewes, she not only beat the eight-hour record, but surpassed the nine-hour total by 13 sheep.
“The end of that day was a blur. In shearing, you always celebrate hitting a new PB, so it felt like that. Except this happened to be a record,” she laughs.
Catherine and Ardy, who is also a shearer, now work on her family farm near Gisborne. While she will always be involved in the shearing world, her focus is finding the balance between work and time with her boys, now aged four and two.
“I sacrificed a lot of time away from them to train, and I still have a lot of guilt. But I know it has made me a better mum and a better person.
“We want them to see us work hard, but we don’t want them to grow up thinking that’s all we do.”
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