The Harden Racecourse was abuzz with Australian country and music performer Tom Curtain on February 13 when more than 700 people converged for the event. Curtain was undertaking a tour of Southern NSW and the twin towns welcomed him in for his unique shows chock full of special animals and his musical exploits in a show that lasted more than three hours. Tom was great with the crowd and had all of the kids up and participating in the family friendly event.
Organised by the Harden Rodeo Club, it was a highly successful event with the club retaining profits from the canteen sales.
President Zak Leitner said. “It was a really good family event and a lot of elderly people came aswell. The Grange brought a bus load out.
“We will have our meeting this week to finalise it, but overall it was really good.
Zak’s sister Kace Brooks is a big fan of the performer and thought it would be great to attract him to the town. It proved a masterstroke for the twin towns and the committee.
“Kace wanted to see him last year and something happened and she couldn’t go to it. So she actually approached him and asked him to come here. She organised a lot of it with him and the Rodeo Club just ran the bar and the canteen.
With a committee of just six, the Rodeo Club had the assistance of another 10 people on the night.
Zak said, “He set up some tape out in front of the pavilion and then he did his tricks with dogs, goats and horses. Then they’ve got a band as well. He’s got a couple of albums out. So they do about two hours of trick riding and then two hours of their band.
The Rodeo Club has got a big event coming up on the 18th of April. “We’re finalising a few things this week. It won’t be a Rodeo, but it’ll just be a heap of different events out at the racecourse.
More to come.
In an era of polished pop-country acts, Tom Curtain stands apart as the real deal: a working horseman who sings from the saddle, a master stockman who trains dogs and horses for the crowd, and a multiple Golden Guitar winner whose songs come straight from the red dirt of the Northern Territory.
Born in Mildura, Victoria, in 1979 and raised on the family cattle property Old Boyneside near Kingaroy, Queensland, Curtain’s path was never headed for the bright lights of Nashville. After completing a degree in Applied Science (beef cattle production) at the University of Queensland, he headed north in 2001 to the vast stations of the Top End. It was on Heytesbury Beef’s Mt Sanford Station that everything changed.
While working in the stock camp, an older horseman named Martin Oakes handed him a guitar and taught him three chords. Curtain started scribbling lyrics in a notebook while riding. Soon he was singing his own material at station barbecues, the wind carrying his voice across mobs of Brahman cattle. Encouraged by fellow stockmen, he took the stage unaccompanied at rodeos and campdrafts around the Territory. In June 2002 he won Best Male Vocal at the Adelaide River Country Music Festival – his first taste of the spotlight.
His early albums Smack Bang! (2004) and Heatwave (2006) captured the raw energy of station life. But Curtain never stopped being a horseman. For years he travelled as a contract horse breaker, breaking in up to 10 horses in two weeks and later running a training business near Katherine that handled 150 horses a year.
The 2011 live-export ban shattered the industry overnight. With a young family to support, Curtain faced a crossroads. The solution? Turn the daily work he already did into a tourist attraction. In 2013 he and his wife Annabel launched the Katherine Outback Experience on a small block five kilometres out of town. It began with one horse, two working dogs and a handful of curious visitors. Today it is a multi-award-winning tourism gem – Gold Tourist Attraction of the Year at the Australian Tourism Awards in 2021, 2023 and 2024.
The show itself is pure outback theatre. Audiences watch real horse training – young colts learning to follow, stop and yield – alongside demonstrations with highly skilled working dogs that round up cattle, jump fences and even sit atop horses. Kids get hands-on time herding, and yes, the goats often steal the show, adding laughs and chaos to the proceedings. The one-hour animal segment flows seamlessly into 90 minutes to two hours of live country music, with Curtain joined by talented sidemen and women including Laura Frank and Chris Matthews. He has even been known to play guitar from the saddle while his horse performs on cue.
That unique blend has taken Curtain and the Katherine Outback Experience on annual national tours that now stretch from Queensland to South Australia and Victoria. The current Here’s To You tour (2025-26), supporting his sixth studio album of the same name (which debuted at No. 8 on the ARIA Australian Country Albums Chart), follows the same winning formula that has won him fans in small-town showgrounds and major events such as Equitana Melbourne.
His music career has kept perfect pace. The 2018 single “Never Never Land” (with Luke O’Shea) delivered two Golden Guitars – Toyota Heritage Song of the Year and Video Clip of the Year – and swept the Southern Stars Independent Country Music Awards. The haunting duet “Speak Up” with Sara Storer became an anthem for Dolly’s Dream, the anti-bullying charity inspired by the tragic suicide of 14-year-old Amy “Dolly” Everett.
Curtain remains an official Dolly’s Dream Ambassador, regularly visiting schools to speak openly about mental health in rural communities.
Through it all, Curtain has stayed grounded. He still breaks in horses, still writes songs in the truck between gigs, and still credits the patience learned from animals for every success – and every setback. “You can’t rush a horse or a good song,” he often says with a grin.
From singing to the wind on a remote stock camp to performing for thousands while his dogs and horses dazzle the crowd, Tom Curtain has built something rare in Australian entertainment: a career that doesn’t just talk about the bush – it lives it, breathes it, and invites every audience member to saddle up for the ride.
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