On Friday, Southland shearer Megan Whitehead will attempt to break the women’s eight-hour strong-wool lamb record, set by Manawatū's Sacha Bond. Four days later, Bond will return the favour - tackling Whitehead’s women’s nine-hour solo strong wool lamb shearing record. Olivia Caldwell catches up with both women, to find out more about their friendly rivalry and what drew them to the male-dominated sport.
Blows, ringers, handpieces and fadges. You can be pardoned if you don’t recognise these sheep-shearing terms, but perhaps it’s time we become accustomed to hearing them.
That’s because this summer Aotearoa will host seven shearing record attempts - the most in a recorded season by the World Sheep Shearing Society.
World shearing records date back over 100 years and in that time the sport has kept it reasonably simple.
Unlike other sports, technology hasn’t altered the spectacle. If anything, the changes it has seen – fitness of shearers, tiny tweaks to handpieces, finely tuned shearing patterns – have made record shearing more interesting, and not just for rural viewers.
Undeniably women were a later entry to record shearing when, in 1972, Awakino’s Pam Warren set the first solo by shearing 300 in nine hours. Despite the delay, female shearers are well up to speed.
New Zealand has five solo record holders, three of those female – Megan Whitehead, Sacha Bond and Kerri Jo Te Huia.
Whitehead, a Southlander, is the first out the gate this season with her attempt to break Bond’s eight-hour strong-wool lamb record of 601 on Friday.
Shearing alongside her cousin, Hannah McColl, they’ll attempt the two-stand record of 903.
These women know how to write a good tale, four days later Bond will attempt to break Whitehead’s nine-hour strong-wool lamb record of 661 in Mossburn, Northern Southland.
Leaving ego behind, the friends want to see one another smash it.
“I love Sach. I want all the best for her and the best is going to show isn’t it,” 27-year-old Whitehead said.
“If anyone is going to train and be put through what we are, and sacrifice everything, then they deserve to get the record I reckon.”
Southland shearer Megan Whitehead in action. Photo / Facebook
Bond, 30, wouldn’t label it a rivalry.
She said the friendship was based on each other knowing how hard they worked to get to this point.
“For me, a world record is just a number you are going for and it’s not the person behind it.
“We are good friends me and Megan. We have a lot of stuff in common.”
While they share the similarities of age, work ethic and an almost frustrating humility, they each have a unique story.
Bond was raised in Woodville, a Manawatū town with a population of about 1600.
Until age 16, she grew up in an environment she struggled to describe. She stopped short of labelling it “rough”.
“I grew up in a small town where there was a lot of alcohol and drugs amongst the adults and that is what we were raised around.
“It was just normal to me at that stage, as you don’t know any different. It is why our parents moved us away to Australia to sort of break that cycle and try and get us out of that and where that path could lead.”
A mother of two-year-old Ember, Bond looks back and is thankful for her parents’ decision.
Sacha Bond hold the current solo women's eight-hour strong wool lamb world record of 601.
“My Mum was a passionate wool handler, and I don’t think Dad liked shearing at all.”
Bond got a sniff of the adrenaline, money and comradery that comes with being part of a team.
Two years later she picked up a handpiece for the first time and decided she was going to be a shearer, despite it being unusual for a woman to take centre stage.
Bond sheared her first 100 in the first week.
“I didn’t like wool handling because people would always tell me what to do but they wouldn’t do it themselves. I just saw that the shearers were more respected, and they did whatever they wanted.
“Once I started, I caught the bug of wanting to shear and get personal bests all the time.”
“I feel like if you don’t have self-doubt then there is no way you can progress as a person. You need to be able to look into yourself and see where your faults are and where you can improve.”
Bond is part of Ngāi Tūhoe and is feeling more of a pull to get in touch with her Māoritanga as she climbs.
“It makes me feel really good just with my background and to be a Kiwi woman doing this.”
Deep in the South, Whitehead’s story reads differently.
Brought up in Eastern Southland, shearing parents Tina McColl and Quentin Whitehead encouraged her into the shed, then off to shearing school at 16.
“To make Dad proud, he is an amazing person. He is like a wee kid in a lolly store when it comes to records and shearing in general. It is nice to make your family proud, it makes you happier as well.”
Quentin was behind the gate for the whole nine hours of her world record in January 2021 and will be again on Friday.
“Dad come up last week and made me more confident. He was happy with the way I am shearing, so that is good confirmation.”
The pair have even featured in an Isuzu Utes ad on TV.
By chance her father was picked up as good talent at a Southern sheep dog trials and now the brand is behind Whitehead’s record attempt.
Whitehead has stepped over boundaries and brought her own bright ideas to the pen to become the shearer she is today.
With a slight build, she’s used brainpower rather than brawn.
“Women are probably more technical-minded, and males are more strength-based, so women (shearers) are probably a bit smarter in some ways.
“You see a big strong guy lift a sheep up from the back of the pen and drag it all the way up. Whereas I’ll walk it back and then tip it over and I’ve got the sheep out before he does.
“I am being a bit smarter about it whereas he is using all his strength and probably getting a bit more tired.”
Manawatū shearer Sacha Bond works out at the gym in preparation for lugging around 100 kg ewes.
That isn’t to say these women aren’t putting themselves through paces behind the scenes. Training regimes are comparable to a professional athlete.
Daily gym visits, strict diets, 120kg squats, 160kg deadlifts and then there is slugging around a 100kg ewe.
“They are just balls of muscle and meat and they are very strong. That’s not dead weight, that is live weight trying to kick your face off.”
As of Friday morning, both women are world record holders. Something neither of them saw possible when starting out.
“I had no idea I would come this far,” Whitehead said.
‘I just had a dream of travelling the world and shearing like my parents did. My competitive nature doesn’t let me stop, I don’t like being beaten and I just want to get better, and you just get hungrier.”
“It really is a sort of pinch-yourself moment,” Bond said.
“I am happy to be an inspiration for people. I have worked hard my whole life.”
By Friday evening, Whitehead will know if that hard mahi has paid off.
“It will be what it will be, I have just got to put my foot down.”
Whitehead and McColl’s record attempts will be proudly sponsored by Isuzu Utes.
You can watch Megan and Hannah’s Isuzu Utes eight-hour Solo and two-stand Women’s Shearing World Record attempt as it happens on Friday here.
Megan Whitehead and Sacha Bond’s world record shearing attempts
December 15: Megan Whitehead attempts the Women’s eight-hour Solo Strong Wool Lamb Shearing Record combined Hannah McColl with the two stand women’s record. Watch the action unfold here.
