Dreams of something big have started to open up for Eketahuna shearer Hemi Braddick, who won his first open shearing title in eight years of trying.
The 31-year-old Braddick said, after the breakthrough in the Poverty Bay A and P Show’s Gisborne Shearing and Woolhandling Championships’ open shearing final on Saturday, his success would be the dream of many of New Zealand’s top open-class shearers.
However, most, like Braddick, have toiled season-in, season-out, occasionally making the top finals, but usually watching the major pickings going to a comparative few who’ve dominated over the years – with five shearers claiming more than 60 per cent of open titles in New Zealand since Braddick entered the fray at the top level.
It’s a season where two shearers, from the finals of the 2023 Golden Shears and New Zealand Shears open finals, will win places in the Wools of New Zealand national team for the World Championships in Scotland next June.
Just two of Saturday’s five finalists could claim any previous open wins in New Zealand – a total of eight.
Eliminated along the way from a field of 21 entries were three former world and Golden Shears open champions, among them Hawke’s Bay shearer John Kirkpatrick, who has won 212 finals worldwide, including 12 in Gisborne, and this time missed the cut by just 0.03pts.
Braddick reached Golden Shears and New Zealand Shears finals in the same season three times as an intermediate and senior shearer and was fourth in both the North Island Shearer of the Year and New Zealand Shears open finals at Te Kuiti in 2021.
Hemi Braddick winning the 2022 Gisborne open shearing final. Photo / SSNZ
Braddick, whose last win was in a senior final at Marton in 2013, said he had no secret to finally claiming a winning ribbon.
On Saturday he won by just over a point from Te Kuiti shearer Jack Fagan, who was third in that 2013 final in Marton and has won winner seven open finals in New Zealand, as well as a Royal Welsh open title overseas.
Third place went to 2010 Golden Shears senior winner Tama Nia Nia, of Gisborne, who has just one open win and Masterton shearer Matene Mason, who won the Golden Shears senior title in 2011, was fourth.
Gisborne shearer Ian Kirkpatrick, who was fifth, has also not won an open final, despite the promise shown as an 18-year-old in 2009, when he won the Golden Shears and New Zealand Shears senior finals and was ranked No 1 senior nationwide with 10 wins in the 2008-2009 season.
Scots international Gavin Mutch, who the previous Saturday won the New Zealand Spring Shears final at Waimate, was also eliminated in the semi-finals, while 2010 world champion Cam Ferguson, of Central Hawke’s Bay, was eliminated in Saturday’s heats, as was Northland gun Toa Henderson, who won the Gisborne final when it was last shorn in 2020.
Ian Kirkpatrick, who is John Kirkpatrick’s nephew, got the home crowd buzzing with the fastest time in the semi-finals. He then made a sprint of the 15-sheep final, in which he was first off the board in 13min 40sec, beating Braddick by 23 seconds but clocking up the quality penalties in the process.
Meanwhile, Braddick’s sister Ngaio Hanson finished runner-up in the open woolhandling final. This was around her sixth second-placing in the top grade and left her still without a win after about a decade of trying.
She still has one up on her brother though, as she and her husband Steve Hanson run the family shearing gang out of Eketahuna, near where Braddick and his brother have started farming a small block near the Wairarapa town this year.
Joel Henare claims the 126th ppen woolhandling win of his career at the home show in Gisborne. Photo / SSNZ
Unsurprisingly, her final was won by multiple world champion and local hero Joel Henare, scoring the 126th win of his career and third in four outings this season.
Third place went to former New Zealand senior woolhandling champion Brittany Tibble, also from Gisborne but also yet to win an open title.
Ngaira Puha who came fourth, had her only open win to date at the last competition in the North Island, her home Apiti contest in Manawatū, last February.
Jayden Mainland made a big trip from Northland to win the senior shearing final, the intermediate final was won by Dylan Young, of Tokomaru Bay, and the junior final by Sam Parker, of Raglan.
Tramon Campbell, of Gisborne, and Tatijana Keefe, from Raglan, won the senior and junior woolhandling finals respectively.
Organisers attracted widespread credit for a show which had 47 shearing entries and 41 in woolhandling events, and a late start because of traffic issues for sheep being transported from dry cover amid several days of rain.
After two events in the South Island, it was the first event in the North Island on the 2022-2023 Shearing Sports New Zealand calendar.
Results from the Gisborne Shearing and Woolhandling Championships at the Poverty Bay A and P Show on Saturday, October 15
