Two Hawke's Bay shows will feature in a series to select two woolhandlers for next year's World Shearing and Woolhandling Championships in Scotland.
The Great Raihania Shears, on the last day of the October 19-21 Hawke's Bay A&P Show in Hastings and the Central Hawke's Bay A&P Show on November 10-12, will be part of an eight-round selection series, which will culminate with finals at the Golden Shears in Masterton in March.
Four rounds will be in the North Island, the first in Gisborne in the weekend before the Hawke's Bay Show, and the series, with events as far south as Lumsden, Gore and Balclutha, will conclude with a final at the Golden Shears in Masterton in March.
The Shearing Sports New Zealand team's two machine-shearers will come from the finals of the Golden Shears and Te Kuiti's New Zealand Shears Open finals, and a series will be held in the South Island to select two blades-shearers for the championships next June.
While Hawke's Bay has produced three world champion shearers in the last 12 years, the best a Hawke's Bay woolhandler has done was third-place, which was awarded to Oti Mason, of Dannevirke, in Ireland in 1998, although several top competitors, such as two-time world individual and teams champion Joel Henare, have worked mainshear seasons based in Hawke's Bay, particularly in the Dannevirke area.
