Hundreds of competitors have descended on Masterton for the 55th Golden Shears international shearing and woolhandling championships, which start at the War Memorial Stadium in Masterton today and end on Saturday.
More than 320 entries from as far afield as Scotland and Chile have been received for the 22 events with most attention being on legendary Te Kuiti shearer David Fagan, who is retiring at the end of the season after 37 years of competitive shearing in which he has won 640 open finals worldwide.
Fagan, 53, is one of more than 70 competitors in the glamour event, the Golden Shears Open, in which he has reached the final 26 times and posted 16 wins. His first final was in 1984 when runner-up to brother John, and he won the event for the first time in 1986. He last won in 2009.
And if that's not remarkable enough Fagan has won at least 25 other events at the Golden Shears as well, including nine wins in the National Circuit final, for which he is also the favourite this time round.
It would be wrong, however, to suggest the 2015 open final will be one-way traffic.