Fire at Ravensdown Fertiliser Plant, Napier.
Video / Pip Thompson
A Tararua woolshed has been confirmed as the scene for a January 20 attempt to wrestle back to New Zealand a glamour shearing record which was for almost 60 years held as almost an exclusive down under Kiwi right.
Record-breaking shearer Jamie Skiffington, pictured in a two-stand success near Whanganui, is now lining-up one of the biggest challenges of them all, in a woolshed near Dannevirke. Photo / Supplied
The attempt on the men’s solo nine-hours strongwool lambs record of872 (an average of just over 37 seconds a lamb caught, shorn and dispatched) will be made by Rotorua shearer Jamie Skiffington at Waewaepa Station, south of Dannevirke.
World record breaking Hawke's Bay shearers Dion King (left) and Rodney Sutton in 2007 after King shore a World solo nine-hours strongwool lambs record of 866, which stood for nine years. Sutton was a previous record holder and is managing the January attempt on the current record of 872 in Southern Hawke's Bay. Photo / Doug Laing.
It will be the first attempt on the record in New Zealand since January 2011, when an attempt by Scott at Opepe, near Taupō, was called off at the end of the second of five scheduled runs when the tally was already out of reach.
The only other attempt on King’s record in New Zealand was in November 2010, when a bid by Steve Stoney, from Taihape, at Kahuranaki Station, east of Hastings, was called off with the target already out of reach at the end of the two hours before breakfast.
McCarroll is not surprised there have been so few recent-years challenges to a record which was held by New Zealanders, shearing in New Zealand, for 58 years from the Masterton shearer Graham Clegg (now multi-millionaire businessman) shore 512 in the first attempt after the inception of a recognised shearing records structure in 1968 to Scott’s 2016 effort in England.
“It’s a bloody big number to beat,” he said.
Attempts are monitored by multi-national judging panels and holders have included World or Golden Shears Open champions Brian “Snow” Quinn, John and David Fagan, Alan MacDonald and King, and merino and strongwool champion Hamahona (Sam) Te Whata.
The eight-hour pairs lambs record held by Skiffington and Simon Goss, of Mangamahu Valley, is also under challenge this summer, with an attempt by Wairarapa shearer Paerata Abraham, formerly of Dannevirke, and Welsh speedster Llyr Jones calendared for December 13 at Whitespurs Station, east of Masterton.
It will be followed five days later by an attempt on the three-stand lambs record for eight hours of 1976 shorn in King Country in December 2019 by Coel L’Huillier, Kaleb Foote (the No 8 in King Country’s Heartland Rugby Lochore Cup win on Sunday) and Daniel Langlands.
Among those attempting the record on December 18 at Ferndale Station, Turakina Valley, will be Marton shearer Jimmy Samuels, who during the weekend at Kojonup, West Australia, clocked up win No 76 in the short form of the game – the speedshear, or quick shear as it is known in Australia.
Samuels will be joined by Hunterville contractor Shane Ratima, and South Island shearer Akuhata Waihape.
Meanwhile, New South Wales shearer Nikki Lyons has confirmed an attempt to establish a solo women’s eight-hours merino lambs record, on November 16 at Marilba, near NSW township Bowning, about 70km north of Canberra.
It follows a groundbreaking women’s ewes record of 358 shorn in eight hours by Jeanine Kimm in May, the first official women’s shearing record attempt in Australia.
The Southern Hemisphere shearing records season got under way successfully on October 12 when current Australian shearing team manager Steve Mudford shore a nine-hours merino wethers record of 421 at family property Parkdale Merino Stud, Dubbo, NSW, three more than the previous record set 25 years ago by South Canterbury shearer Grant Smith who shore 418 at Ryton Station, Lake Coleridge, on November 4, 1999.
Mudford, 49, achieved the record despite the judges rejecting or removing five others from the tally during the day.
The sheep averaged 4.062kg of wool per head at a sample shear before the judges the day before the record.
Mudford was credited with 89 in the first two hours to breakfast and successive 1hr 45min runs of 84, 85, 80 and 83 for the rest of the day, receiving an official quality warning in the second-to-last run and achieving a penalty rating of 17.57, within the average of 18 allowed in the rules.
Mudford is also a holder of three-stand, eight-hours merino ewes record of 1289, of which he shore 396 at Parkdale in 2014, and the 8hrs solo record of 373 set in 2018.
His latest was the 12th record in 13 record bids in Australasia and the UK in the last 12 months.
They include last December’s women’s 8hrs strongwool lambs record of 686 by Megan Whitehead and 9hrs tally of 720 by Sacha Bond, both in the South Island, the remarkable women’s eight-hours strongwool ewes tally of 465 shorn by Poverty Bay shearer Catherine Mullooly in coastal King Country on January 10, and the women’s nine-hours strongwool ewes mark of 517 shorn in England on August 7 by 50-year-old Scottish shearer Una Cameron, the only female shearer to qualify for the Golden Shears Open championship Top 30 quarter-final shootout in Masterton.
Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 51 years of journalism experience, all of them covering shearing events, 40 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.
