A former pupil of Tararua College has smashed a record beyond the scope of any scholastic dreams, by becoming the first woman in the world to shear 700 sheep in a nine-hour day.
Shearing today at Centre Hill, near Mossburn in Southland, Sacha Bond set a world women’s nine-hour strong wool lambs record of 720 – an average of a lamb every 45 seconds, caught, shorn and dispatched.
Starting at 5am, Bond was always 6-7 lambs per hour ahead of the pace needed to break the previous record of 661 shorn by Southland gun Megan Whitehead in January 2021.
Bond breezed back into the record books with about 45 minutes to go and passed the next benchmark of 700 about a quarter-hour before the 5pm finish.
The official tally comprised 162 in the first two hours to breakfast and successive 1hr 45min runs of 142, 137, 137 and 142 around the half-hour breaks for morning and afternoon tea and one hour for lunch.