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.
