"Joel's been mentoring me on how to prepare better for finals, better ways to do things," she said. "He's been really good, pretty much stripping my performances apart, and telling me where I go wrong."
The result was that while she'd had just one previous win this season, on much-contrasting lambswool at Winton in Southland in January, she's reached more finals than ever before, and was runner-up to Henare on finewool at the New Zealand Merino championships which started the season in October, in the New Zealand Woolhandler of the Year final at Balclutha last month and on March 3 when Henare claimed his 6th consecutive Golden Shears Open title, and 100th Open-class win.
For Karauria it was the 15th win of an Open-class career which started off with a win in her first Open final at the Canterbury Show in 2006, and was a bigconfidence-booster ahead of the New Zealand championships which end the season and start in Te Kuiti on Wednesday.
She will be aiming to go one better than in her only previous New Zealand championships Open final – runner-up in 2016 to Joel Henare.
Karauria plans to stay in New Zealand until at least the end of next season's World Championships New Zealand team selection process, unlike recent seasons in which she worked in Australia, and often crossed the Tasman in short stints home to contest the major titles.
Also a Senior-grade competition shearer, she said she keeps phyisically fit by shearing every day, which has alsoi been credited for her recovery from a major back inhury in a work-van crash in 2008. "I prepare mentally in my own time," she said.
Today's event attracted 15 entries, who Karauria said were "all out of our comfort zone" in front of a largely tourist audience and using wool tables made from wooden shipping pallets.
Auckland show board member and shearing and woolhadling commentator Phil O'Shaughnessy said beforehand there hadn't been a lot of sheep to be found in Auckland – "nor wool tables."
Karauria won $900, Potae $500 and Henare $250, but the winner said: "No one really comes up for the money. It's the title that counts."
It was the third day of the show's annual Northern Shears, shearing dominating the first two days in which Golden Shears winners Rowland Smith, of Hastings, and Tegwyn Bradley, of Woodville, claimed the Open and Senior titles respectively. Daniel Seed, also of Woodville, and Reuben Alabaster, of Taihape, won the Intermediate and Junior shearing finals respectively.
Show vice-president Duncan McNab said the shearing and woolhandling, with thousands of showgoers passing by in the pavilion where the cmpetition and displays were held, remained at "a high level."
Mr O'Shaughnessy said adding the woolhandling was a success, but decisions remain to be made about ts future on the programme
Result of the Royal Easter Show Woolhandling at Auckland on Sunday, April 1, 2018:
Open final (5 fleeces): Pagan Karauria (Alexandra) 107.418pts, 1; Monica Potae (Milton) 116.67pts, 2; Joel Henare (Gisborne) 131.656pts, 3; Sheree Alabaster (Taihape) 4; Amy Karaka (Te Karaka) 5; Trish Moke Ludlow (Waipawa) 6.
