Matt Smith breaks shearing world record

Kiwi shearer Matt Smith has smashed the world sheep shearing record over in England in the first record attempt to take place in the Northern Hemisphere.

Smith hit the record just after 4am this morning New Zealand time after shearing 731 ewes in nine hours.

The Country Early Edition's Dom George caught up with Doug Laing from shearing sports New Zealand this morning to get the lowdown on the event.

Laing saw the original record set by Rodney Sutton in 2007 and people wondered if it would ever be broken. This morning Smith proved everyone wrong, shearing 81 sheep per hour at a rate of 44.32 seconds per sheep. That includes 'catching and dispatching'.

However, it's not just Matt doing the hard work. He has people looking after his gear and there's a large crew out the back looking after the sheep waiting to be shorn. It's a team effort and anything can affect the outcome and Laing has seen previous efforts ruined by external issues.

It's truly one event where you've got to have everything going right on the day

Doug Laing

Matt Smith has been training for over a year and even breeds the sheep for a record attempt. He was going to have a crack at the nine hour record last year but didn't think the sheep were ready.

Shearing is in the blood for the Smiths as Matt's brother Rowland is a champion shearer himself. He was at Trefrank farm today to help out.

The one great thing that sticks shearing out from anything else is the teamwork that's involved, even when it's only one person's goal

Doug Laing

What's next for Matt Smith? Laing reckons he'll come back to New Zealand for the summer but not for a holiday. There's the New Zealand season and the World Champs in Invercargill where he'll help his brother Rowland successfully defend that title.

No rest for Trefrank farm either as the lambs of the sheep shorn today will be used for a record attempt by Irishman Ivan Scott's nine hour record of 866 lambs sheared on Friday.

Listen to the full interview with Doug Laing in the Soundcloud embed below: