Golden Shears shearing champion Cam Ferguson has launched his preparations for next month's world championships in Wales by winning a major title in England.
Ferguson won the Royal Cornwall Open in what was his first victory since winning the 50th Golden Shears open title in Masterton in March.
The success came after
he had shorn in Italy for about six weeks before heading for the UK at the end of May.
In his first Northern Hemisphere competition, Ferguson, from Waipawa, was fourth in a six-man Royal Bath and West Show final on June 4, being beaten by Northern Ireland world championship hope Kieran McCullough, South Island-based Irishman Ivan Scott and fellow Kiwi Jason Win, from Ikamatua on the West Coast.
Two other New Zealanders featured in the five-man Cornwall final on Friday with Far North shearer Matthew Smith third and Paerata Abraham fifth. Abraham is from Dannevirke but based himself in the Masterton region last summer.
Ferguson was first off the board in the 14-sheep final, finishing in 10min 7s, with Smith second fastest, 9s behind him.
Meanwhile Golden Shears legend David Fagan left his Te Kuiti home on Sunday to team up with Ferguson for the shearing events at the world championships to be held at the Royal Welsh Show from July 19-22.
Also representing New Zealand will be woolhandlers Sheree Alabaster, from Taihape, the defending world champion, and Keryn Herbert, from Te Awamutu, and North Canterbury blade shearers Brian Thomson and Allen Gemmell.
Fagan won the world shearing title in Masterton in 1988 and 1996, in England in 1992, in Ireland in 1998 and in Scotland in 2003 and is seeking to add Wales to that impressive list, having been beaten there in the 1994 final by his life-long friend and fellow King Country veteran Alan McDonald.
Winning world teams' titles is nothing new either for Fagan. He has six to his credit and is determined he and Ferguson will successfully defend the title won by Taranaki's Paul Avery and Hawkes Bay's John Kirkpatrick in Norway in 2008.
Another objective for master craftsman Fagan is to win his 600th open competition title in a 28-season open-class career dating back to 1982 and he will have plenty of opportunity to do so in the weeks ahead as he and Ferguson will contest up to eight competitions before the worlds.
