A $420 trip for a $250 prize was still worth it for world champion shearer Allan Oldfield, who won the open blades final at the Northern A and P Show at Rangiora in North Canterbury on Saturday.
The 31-year-old had an eventful trip from Hutt Valley to the North Canterbury competition, travelling by train and plane.
Oldfield missed out on a Christchurch flight due to an influx of rugby fans having inflated airfare prices, so he eventually reached his destination via Timaru in South Canterbury.
It was a homecoming of sorts for Oldfield, who now resides in the Hutt Valley suburb of Waiwhetu, as he was originally from Geraldine in the South Island, where he learned to shear with his father, and fellow competitor, Phil Oldfield.
Suburban train-goers may have wondered what was in the bag of the bearded fellow passenger on occasional trips between Hutt Valley and Wellington - it was his blade shears.
As it happened, the flights were $100 cheaper each way than flying through Christchurch but the airfares still cost him about $420 when the prize at the end was just $250.
While the trip hit Oldfield in the pocket, the open blades’ final win was still worth it, because his success at Rangiora gave him maximum points in the second round of the eight-round Wools of New Zealand World Championships New Zealand Selection Series.
Allan Oldfield on his way to a Rangiora open blade shearing win on Saturday and the second round of a New Zealand 2023 World Championships team selection series. Photo / Supplied
To get to Scotland in June to defend the title he won in France in 2019, he needs to be first or second in the series when it ends at Easter, and he couldn’t afford to drop an event in the early stages.
Oldfield and 2019 world teams champion partner Tony Dobbs, from Fairlie (winner of the first round in the Waimate Shears and runner-up on Saturday), were supposed to miss the event, as they were on national transtasman test match duty in Australia.
It was only when that match was postponed because facilities were needed as a flooding evacuation centre, that they made the decision to compete at Rangiora.
Oldfield will do it again on Saturday for the third round at Ashburton, followed by the Golden Blades in Christchurch in the garden city’s Cup and Show week, each pre-booked well in advance to keep down the costs.
However, he said it wouldn’t be until the fifth round at Reefton in February that the series would start to sort itself out, and only then could he start thinking about picking and choosing which rounds he may still do - in a series based entirely in the South Island.
With sheep numbers in continual decline and little commercial work going around at present for the blades shearers, Oldfield keeps the bank account ticking over with machine shearing in Wairarapa.
He keeps the blades going by doing small numbers on lifestyle blocks, such as a mixed mob near Geraldine during the weekend trip south, including a Drysdale ram, a Valais Blacknose cross wether and a black Coopworth wether.
On Saturday there were just 0.31pts between Oldfield and Dobbs in a four-man final of four sheep each, which Oldfield shore in a tick over 11 minutes.
Third was former New Zealand team member, Allen Gemmell, of Loburn, while Oldfield’s father, Phil, came fourth.
In the machine shearing, Pleasant Point shearer Ant Frew’s three-year wait for another win was rewarded with an open final victory by 0.79pts over Rangiora shearer Hugh De Lacy, who had won at Ellesmere’s Selwyn Spring Show seven days earlier.
De Lacy was first off in the four-man final, shearing 13min 10.3sec for the 12 sheep but, finishing next in 13min 42.59sec, Frew comfortably had the tidier pen of sheep afterwards and carried the day with the better quality points.
Frew had shorn about 10 finals since his last win, on lambs at Methven in March 2019.
On Saturday he became the seventh different winner in seven open finals throughout the country, in the first three weeks of this season, with none having yet claimed more than a single win.
Meanwhile, first-season open shearer Taare Edwards, of Ashburton, won the open plate, Liam Norrie, of Cheviot, the senior final, Emily Pike, from Australia, claimed intermediate honours as the only shearer in the grade, and Lydia Thomson, of Rangiora, claimed her first junior title, shearing in her sixth final.
New competition organiser Mark Herlihy was pleased with the day, with 36 shearers competing, including 15 in the open grade.
Allan Oldfield (left) and father Phil Oldfield in the open blade shearing final at the Northern A and P Show in Rangiora on Saturday. Photo / Supplied
Results from the Northern A and P Shears at Rangiora on Saturday, October 22, 2022
Open final (12 sheep): Ant Frew (Pleasant Point) 13min 42.59sec, 48.71pts, 1; Hugh De Lacy (Rangiora) 13min 10.03sec, 49.5pts, 2; Toko Hapuku (Methven) 13min 51.91sec, 51.1pts, 3; Lyall Windleburn (Rangiora) 14min 7.66sec, 56.63pts, 4.
