Golden Shears back on the road again

Rowland Smith chats with judge Ken MacPherson moments after finishing the last Golden Shears Open final in 2020, and winning the title for a seventh time. Photo / Pete Nikolaison

More than 370 shearers, woolhandlers and woolpressers are gathered in Masterton for the three-day Golden Shears international championships starting on Thursday, March 2.

The championships, having grown from a core of three Golden Shears titles for shearing and a small number of YFC events when established in 1961, will this year feature 22 titles across the shearing sports as the event bounces back after two years of cancellations amid the hindrances of the global pandemic, as it’s not been held since the 60-year celebrations in 2020, one of the last major events before the first Covid-19 lockdown.

As has been the case since its inception, it makes a woolshed out of the Masterton War Memorial Stadium, which at peak capacity and without the protocols and limits of modern-day indoor seating limits would house about 2500 people for the glamourous final-night, 20-minute Golden Shears Open shearing final, often referred to as shearing’s Wimbledon.

With some late entries expected, 361 people had their entries registered by Monday this week, including more than 80 from overseas, comprising at least 38 from the UK and 37 from Australia.

It reflects the reuniting of the global shearing fraternity, after the border closures of the pandemic and what were tough times with a shortage of shearers to clear the New Zealand fleece, and what Golden Shears International Shearing Championship Society president and Wairarapa farmer Sam Saunders says is the mana of the Shears worldwide and the acclaim it has brought Masterton and the region of Wairarapa.

Its Open shearing and woolhandling champions have become household names, its rostrum has become a target for prime ministers and other politicians, and the event spawned the Golden Shears World Championships, first held in England in 1977 and being held again on June 22-25 this year at the Royal Highland Show in Scotland.

It has also made New Zealand the only country in which competition shearing and woolhandling has Government acknowledgement as a sport, with Shearing Sports New Zealand one of almost 70 national sports organisations recognised by Sport New Zealand.

Partly as a result, New Zealand is the only country to offer formal betting on the outcomes, with the TAB having open options on the Open shearing and woolhandling finals, the PGG Vetmed National Shearing Circuit final and shearing and woolhandling tests between New Zealand and Australia.

The TAB has made defending champions Rowland Smith, who grew up in Northland but is now a farmer, shearer and rural contractor at Maraekakaho, near Hastings, and Motueka-based Joel Henare, from Gisborne, favourites to win the shearing and woolhandling titles respectively.

The winner of the Open shearing final wins a place in the New Zealand team for the world championships, as will the first two in a woolhandling selection series final also being held during the Golden Shears.

Smith, seven-time winner of the Open shearing titles, faces challenges from regulars such as four-time winner John Kirkpatrick and 2015 winner Gavin Mutch, both also farming and shearing in Hawke’s Bay, and emerging hopefuls such as Toa Henderson of Kaiwaka, Northland, winner of seven Open titles in the current season, which has 57 shows throughout New Zealand.

Henare is an even warmer favourite, aiming for a ninth Golden Shears Open woolhandling title in a row and with 132 career wins, estimated to be about twice the number of wins accrued by the other 33 entered in his event by Monday.

Among those missing is fellow former world champion and multiple New Zealand Shears Open champion Sheree Alabaster - a full-time schoolteacher this week on a school camp with her Taihape pupils, which means she’ll be missing the week in Masterton for the first time since “I was a little girl watching my dad”.

She’s still determined to be there on Saturday night, despite some logistical difficulties in making it in time after netball during the day.

Another missing is departing stadium presentations host and ‘MC’ Kieran McAnulty, who has had to step down because of his commitments as MP for Wairarapa and growing Parliamentary responsibilities, including his elevation last year to Cabinet and his February 1 appointment as Minister of Local Government and Minister for Rural Communities, just a fortnight before the advent of Cyclone Gabrielle, amid the responsibilities of Minister for Emergency Management he assumed last year.

The Shears will also debut some hopefully future stars in a Teddy Bear Shear, where children pretend-shear using teddies as the sheep, handpieces or such things as wooden blocks in their hands, and mock-up shearing gear including singlets, trou, moccasins and bow-yangs, re-enacting the learning years of children from shearing families in the woolshed over many decades.

Teddy Bear Shears have become features of some other shows, particularly in Otago.

Saunders says the Teddy Bear Shear and other wool activities during the week are one way of “bringing back” some of the things lost to the wool industry over the years, including lessons learned from a young age, such as commitment to “getting up early and going to work … and enjoying it”.

He said the lessons also include commitment to working as a team, despite the conditions, the ultimate factor behind the strong interest in Golden Shears this year.

There were 219 competitors at the Apiti Sports Shears on Saturday, despite the rain at the domain venue north of Feilding.

“The feeling I am getting is that people have been missing the Shears,” Saunders said.

“It just shows people enjoy the company and the feel of it all, and just can’t wait. It’s good to be back.”