David Buick (centre) in the race for fastest time with Hemi Braddick (left) in the Great Raihania Shears Open shearing final at the Hawke's Bay A and P Show. Photo / Doug Laing.
David Buick (centre) in the race for fastest time with Hemi Braddick (left) in the Great Raihania Shears Open shearing final at the Hawke's Bay A and P Show. Photo / Doug Laing.
Pongaroa shearer David Buick’s comeback after a near-fatal farm accident took another giant leap forward when he was beaten by just one second in the Hawke’s Bay A and P Show’s Great Raihania Shears Open final last Friday.
Competing on the second anniversary of the day he suffered multiple crush injuries buried up to the neck after the walls of a trench caved on October 20, 2021, Buick would have won his first Open final back on the road had it not been for the wayward intentions of his ninth hogget midway through the four-man final of 20 sheep each.
Leading the race at the time, he struggled for several seconds to get the sheep through the porthole before he could get No. 10 onto the board, yet when all time and quality points were calculated he was still runner-up, beaten by just 0.5pts, the equivalent of a single second.
Flaxmere shearing contractor Colin Watson Paul, who led the revival of the show's shearing and woolhandling competition in 2004, in an emotional moment after a presentation from the North Island Woolhandling Circuit recognising his support of the circuit. Photo / Paul Taylor.
Buick, who was this year acclaimed by Shearing Sports New Zealand as a Master Shear, with a history of multiple titles and 15 test matches behind him along with being the No. 1-ranked Open shearer in New Zealand in 2020-2021, shore the 20 in 18min 29sec, beaten only by the 18min 12sec of Eketāhuna gun Hemi Braddick.
But it was quality that counted most, with Gisborne shearer Tama Nianiaincurring just seven penalty strokes in board judging and sneaking through to take the win, 11 years after his first and only other Open win, at Wairoa in 2012.
Buick said that while it was one step at a time he plans to shear at most shows in the next few weeks.
Manawatū mum Ngaira Puha started the bounce-back from the tragedy of losing a child when she won the Open woolhandling final.
A 27-year-old mum-of-two from Kimbolton, said she needed to “get out” after losing a child stillborn on October 5, and she couldn’t have done it without the support of those who had helped her through “the last few weeks.”
She, also, had won just won once previously in Open class, at home-show Apiti in February 2022, having shortly before given up the full-time lifestyle of the shed to go into youth work and teaching, and this year hadn’t competed since the Golden Shears in Masterton in March.
The Open class attracted 21 shearers, taking a liking in the heats to the good-shearing ewes from the Tikokino property of Duncan and Mokai Gray, but with some drama in the semifinals, of six sheep each, with the elimination of Te Kūiti shearer Jack Fagan, who had won at the North Island show of the season at Gisborne six days earlier.
The third North Island shearing and woolhandling competition of the season is at the Wairarapa A and P Show at Clareville (Carterton) next weekend, followed by the Manawatū show at Feilding on November 4 and the Central Hawke’s Bay A and P Show in Waipukurau on November 11.
Champion sheep honours for North Canterbury suffolk stud proprietor and breeder Doug Croy, of Oxford. Photo / Paul Taylor
Meanwhile, in other rural sports at the show, Wairarapa farmer Vaughan Marfell won the sheep dog trial in a 15-dog runoff on Friday.
A member of the Wairarapa and Southern Hawke’s Bay centre and travelling from Masterton, Marfell and well-rated dog Shine edged out Hawke’s Bay competitors Graham Duff, who was runner-up with Jess, and Peter Williams who was third with Guide and fourth with Roger.
Lex Grattan, another traveller, was fifth with Brooke, one of three dogs with which he qualified for the runoff after the day of qualifying runs on Thursday.
New Zealand Fencing Competitions Hawke's Bay Show doubles champions Matt Jones and Tim Stafford.
Matt Jones, of Levin, and Tim Stafford, of Marton, scored a big win and claimed the show’s New Zealand Fencing Competitions Hawke’s Bay Show doubles by beating the favoured Hawke’s Bay partnership of father-and-son dual World and national olden Pliers champions and runners-up Shane and Tony Bouskill. Third was the 2023 Fieldays doubles champion pairing of Mark Lambert, of Bulls, and Jeff Joines, of Te Horo.
Gisborne clydesdales exhibitor and competitor Bruce Holden with the compliant "Christopher". Photo / Paul Taylor.
Results of rural sports events at the Hawke’s Bay A and P Show October 18-20:
North Island Shearing Circuit Teams event: Waiari Puna (Napier) and Te Anna (Phillips (Taumarunui) 155.76pts, 1; Kalyah Ferguson (Waipawa) and Tatijana Keefe (Raupunga) 185.05pts, 2.
Sheepdogs
Runoff: Vaughan Marfell, Shine, 96.5pts, 1; Graham Duff, Jess, 96pts, 2; Peter Williams, Guide, 95.5pts, 3; Peter Williams, Roger, 94.5pts, 4; Lex Grattan, Brooke, 94pts, 5.
NZFC Hawke’s Show Championship: Matt Jones/Tim Stafford 1, Tony Bouskill/Shane Bouskill 2, Mark Lambert/Jeff Joines 3, Troy Brooky and Martin Leveridge 4.
