Woolhandling champ to shear at Whangarei A and P Show

Pagan Karauria winning the first New Zealand Shears women's shearing final in Te Kuiti in 2019. Photo / SSNZ

A world woolhandling champion from Central Otago has confirmed she will compete in the inaugural Whangarei A and P Show Shears tomorrow – as a shearer.

She is Pagan Karauria, the daughter of former world record-holding shearer Dion Morrell and world teams champion woolhandler Tina Rimene.

Karauria and husband Tamehana, who have been contracting at eight sheds in Northland over the last month, will also mark a unique achievement, as possibly the first husband-and-wife to compete in the open shearing class.

There is no woolhandling competition at the shears this week.

While some of the crew headed for more shearing in Hawke's Bay and elsewhere after the last shed on the Northland run was cut-out earlier than anticipated, the couple took a few days out to stay in the north to support the Whangarei A and P Society's new venture - the first lambs hearing competition of the 2020-2021 season on a three-stand relocatable shearing board built especially for the event.

"I'm not fit though, and I'm a little out of touch with the handpiece these days, but I'm going to head up and support it anyway," she said.

Karauria was lending a hand as shearer numbers were a littler short because of the absence of the usual season influx from overseas. As a result, she will be shearing more this year than in recent seasons.

Crew member Foonie Waihape, also an open-class woolhandler, has stayed back in the north as well and will compete in the junior shearing event.

Karauria has won 35 open woolhandling finals and has been in several shearing finals over the years, including fifth place in the New Zealand Championships junior final in Te Kuiti in 2013.

Karauria also enjoyed a winning streak at the French All Nations Champs in July 2019, competing in the Central France town Le Dorat.

There she won the world woolhandling teams title with Taihape schoolteacher and woolhandler Sheree Alabaster, and also took out the individual title. She came fourth in the women's shearing final.

Karauria, who recovered after breaking her back in a work-van crash 12 years ago, has barely shorn since the French All Nations, which came three months after she won the first New Zealand Shears Women's title in Te Kuiti.

Karauria was also one of the five female shearers in the successful documentary "She Shears", which launched in movie theatres throughout New Zealand in 2018, among the others being Northland shearer Hazel Wood, of Ruawai.

Starting at 10am with novice grade heats, shearing on Saturday will take place in six classes, including the veterans.

Among other shearers expected to compete are well-performed northern open-class shearers Toa Henderson, of Kaiwaka, and Phil Wedd, of Silverdale, and Te Kuiti shearer Jack Fagan, who won the French All Nations speed shear preceding the 2019 World Championships.

Fagan's father, shearing legend and Shearing Sports New Zealand chairman Sir David Fagan, will also be present to officially open the new shearing stand.

The Whangarei A and P Shears opens this season's ANZ Northland teams championship, which ends at Kumeu in March.

It is the 10th competition of a shearing sports season hit by the cancellation of several shows in the South Island and lower North Island, amid the uncertainty of the Covid-19 crisis, and the first of nine shearing competitions in the Northern Region during the season.

Others are: January 16 (Sat), Kaikohe A, P, and I Show; February 6 (Sat), North Kaipara A and P Show, at Paparoa; February 13 (Sat), Northern Wairoa A and P Show, at Arapohue; February 20 (Sat), North Hokianga A and P Show, at Broadwood; February 21 (Sun), Counties Shears, at Pukekohe; March 13 (Sat), Kumeu A and H Show; March 20 (Sat), Warkworth A and P Show; April 2-3 (Fri-Sat), Royal Easter Show, at Auckland.