Shear and shear alike in the Gordon family

David Gordon isn't expecting anything special when he debuts in the junior division at the New Zealand shearing championships in Te Kuiti over the weekend.
Gordon, 13, from Masterton became the youngest champion in Golden Shears history when he won the novice final there last month but he admits his main goal at Te Kuiti is to get past the heats and into the semifinals.
It's not that the Wairarapa College third former doesn't have confidence in his own ability, rather the quality of opposition at junior level will be considerably stronger than it was in the novice class. ''It's going to be harder, way harder,'' Gordon said. ''In everything, speed and skill. I'm not expecting too much, the semis would be great.''
Gordon is pleased, however, that the pressure of being favourite won't be hovering over him on this occasion.
In the weeks going into the Golden Shears, he had won four other novice competitions and was everybody's pick to be home-town hero in what was the first of the finals at the 50th anniversary of shearing's major event.
Gordon concedes he was lucky to even make it to the semis there because of what he labelled a ''pretty poor'' effort in the heats, something he believes was caused by nerves.
''I knew everyone was saying I should win and I think it might have got to me,'' he said.
''The heats were the worst part, things went well after that.''
In fact they went so well Gordon had one of the biggest winning margins ever in a Golden Shears final, triumphing by more than 10 points.
What made victory even sweeter for the youngster, who shore his first sheep at the age of seven, was that his elder sister, Cushla, 20, had won the same novice title in 2008.
Cushla Gordon had finished 21st in the novice grade at Masterton the year before winning the Golden Shears crown and David had repeated that feat.
Father Nuki Gordon, who will compete in the open class at Te Kuiti this weekend as well as share some of the commentating duties, said his son came away from his first attempt at the Golden Shears vowing to return 12 months later and win the novice title.
''There were no ifs and buts, in his mind he was going to win and that was all there was to it,'' Nuki Gordon recalls.
''You tend to take those things with a grain of salt but I remember thinking how determined he was, second was never going to be good enough.''
David Gordon's ambition is to win the Golden Shears open title.
''That's the one every shearer wants to win,'' he said.
Joining Nuki and David at Te Kuiti will be yet another member of the family.
Samantha Gordon, 16, also a pupil at Wairarapa College, made her debut at Golden Shears this year and made the semifinals of the junior woolhandling, a discipline in which she is the third highest points-getter in her class on the North Island circuit.
And there will be plenty of other Wairarapa competitors in the reckoning for honours, too, with David Buck in the open shearing grade, Matene Mason, DJ Hape, Toby Rore and Mark Buick in the senior shearing grade, Sharnie Rimene and Mike Anderson in the intermediate shearing class, Waimere Peneha in the open woolhandling and Ursula Taiaroa and Fiona Christensen in the senior woolhandling.