Taihape teenager Reuben Alabaster breaks world shearing record for lambs

Teenager Reuben Alabaster, of Taihape, after setting a new lamb shearing world record of 746 in eight hours on Tuesday. Photo / Doug Laing

Taihape teenager Reuben Alabaster had to wait till the last minute to break a world shearing record which had gone unchallenged for almost 11 years.

Now he faces the possibility that after setting a new solo eight hours strongwool lamb shearing mark of 746 yesterday (December 20) at Te Pa Station, south of Raetihi and Ohakune, he could be the holder for just 48 hours, with Te Kuiti shearer Jack Fagan in line to tackle the same record in a woolshed near Pio Pio on Thursday.

Having a year ago at the age of 18 become the youngest to hold a shearing record as part of a five-stand triumph in the same woolshed, at 19 he yesterday became the youngest to set a solo record - the possibility of having just a two-day stay at the top being the least of his concerns amid the euphoria of breaking a record of 744 set by Irish gun Ivan Scott near Taupo in January 2012.

The solo eight-hours strongwool lambs record has twice been held by Hawke’s Bay shearers, with Dion King having shorn 695 in November 2002 at Mangatutu, west of Napier, and Cam Ferguson 742 in a King Country woolshed in January 2011.

Alabaster’s record came with some sort of irony, but in keeping with the unusual climate adversity of much of the North Island this year, with rain pouring down outside and temperatures down to 14C in Ohakune 20km away, the woolshed doors closed to keep the heat indoors, when on any average December 20 it would have been in the range of 30C with the doors open to let some heat out.

The woolshed was more than packed to capacity and pumping big-time for most of the last two-hour run, which was always going to be touch-an- go if he were to break the record.

Needing an average of over 93 lambs an hour, or quicker than 38.7 seconds a lamb caught, shorn and dispatched, Alabaster got off to a good start, with 187 in the opening run from 7am to the morning tea break at 9am.

His 183 in the two hours to lunch, after having one rejected by the World Sheep Shearing Records judging panel, guaranteed a tough afternoon, but he recovered with an all-counted 187 in the next two hours to go to afternoon tea needing 187 to break the record in the run to the 5pm finish.

He did it in the last minute and plucked an extra on the count of time to finish with 188.

“I actually thought the last one was for 745,” he said. “I was relieved.”

Anxious dad Ricky sat alongside him, and cousin and world champion woolhandler Sheree was among the large crew of helpers, the ones who did “90 per cent of the work”, the teen shearer said after blasting his way through the last hour carried by the constant chanting and music from supporters - more resembling the final minutes of a close match between the All Blacks and Wales at Cardiff Arms.

Reuben Alabaster and dad Ricky at an emotional end to the big day in a packed woolshed near Ohakune. Photo / Doug Laing

Among others in the crew were event manager Justin Bell, a southern Hawke’s Bay farmer who once held both the eight- and nine-hour records,

Of his last 50 lambs, more than 30 were through the porthole in under the 38.7 seconds-a-sheep threshold, a dozen at least three seconds quicker.

There were emotional scenes all round at the end, with a father-son hug for the ages, after an effort the equivalent of running two back-to-back marathons, according to scientific monitoring of a world record-breaker in Australia about 20 years ago.

Not 20 till next April, thus the youngest to shear a world record, Alabaster learned to shear before he was 10, and he’s since also been a successful competition shearer, including in 2018, when he was runner-up in the Golden Shears Junior final in Masterton and winner of the New Zealand Shears Junior title in Te Kuiti, at the age of 14.

Judging convener Dave Brooker, from South Australia, confirmed there had been just one lamb rejected during the day, and said it was a good day’s shearing, Alabaster having an average quality rating of 11.23, inside a threshold of 12 penalties.

Afterwards, Alabaster was doing some judging of his own, looking remarkably fresh and assessing that for pain ratio it rated “11 out of 10″.

But he’d still be up at seven in the morning - even if only for a possible early media engagement - if needed, one of the crew saying: “That’s what shearers do.”

Jack Fagan’s bid on Thursday at Puketiti comes 30 years to the day after father (Sir) David Fagan shore nine-hour record 810 in Southland on December 22, 1992.

It’s also the first anniversary of another day at Te Pa, when Fagan shore 811 and Alabaster 774 in a five-stand record for nine hours.