Shearer from Tararua smashes record: first woman in the world to shear 700 sheep in a day

A former Tararua College pupil from Woodville on Tuesday smashed a record beyond the scope of any scholastic dream - the first woman in the world to shear 700 sheep in a nine-hour day.

Shearing at Centre Hill, near Mossburn in Southland, the now King Country-based Sacha Bond set a world women’s nine-hour strongwool lambs record of 720 – a lamb every 45 seconds, caught, shorn and dispatched, and 59 lambs more than the previous record of 661 shorn by Southlander Megan Whitehead in January 2021.

But there’s much more to come from the new female shearing stars, according to Wairoa farmer Marg Baynes, who with daughter Ingrid held a two-stands, eight-hours record for almost 15 years until it was smashed on Friday, also in Southland, including 686 lambs for Whitehead, under 42 seconds a lamb, 85 more than the previous record shorn in February (by Bond) and, ironically, more than Whitehead shorn in nine hours two years ago.

Baynes was 54 when in January 2009 she shore 433 in a two-stand record of 903 in which her daughter shore a record solo tally of 470, and watched both marks disappear from the books last Friday near Gore.

Wairoa farmer Marg Baynes (centre) with new record-holders Megan Whitehead (left) and Hannah McColl (right) on Friday. Baynes and daughter Ingrid had held the two-stand strongwool lambs women's record for eight hours since 2009.

Unlike Bond, 30, and Whitehead, 27, neither Marg nor Ingrid Baynes were regular shearers, and had just wanted the novelty of shearing a mum-daughter record tally.

It wasn’t what the World Sheep Shearing Record Society wanted, and it morphed into records that eventuated in a roasting-hot woolshed near Bennydale.

Marg Baynes reckoned some years later she was still wondering, yet, now 69, she’s still occasionally shearing, including a recent venture with husband Colin to Portland Island.

She flew south to watch Friday’s event, and said: “It was one of the best days of my life.”

Having also followed Bond’s achievement – shearing and moving as quickly at the 5pm as at the 5am start, she said: “We haven’t seen the last of these girls yet.

“It just shows you don’t have to be so big, and they are so athletic.”

Both had worked with training programmes developed by shearing-records go-to trainer Matt Luxton, who followed the events from home in England, something quite different from simply adding a bit of swimming and running to the lifestyle to set a record 15 years ago.

On Tuesday, Bond was always 6-7 per hour ahead of the pace needed to break the record which she broke with about 45 minutes to go on the way to passing 700 about a quarter-hour before the end.

It was the second of eight record attempts in New Zealand this summer, including two to be made in the Tararua District, and Bond’s attempt on the nine-hours ewes record in Southland in February.

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, who passed 50 years in journalism in July, experience in most forms of news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities - and shearing.