Shearers ‘go through hell’ to beat world record in Mangamahu

Justin Bell (left) monitors the time and target as Simon Goss breaks the record Bell and Sean Edmonds held for 30 years. Photo / Ariana Aspinall.

It was possibly the biggest day in the history of a Mangamahu woolshed.

Another world lamb shearing record has been cracked in the Central North Island, helped by one of the pair that had held the record for two decades

Simon Goss, 26, of Mangamahu, northeast of Whanganui, and 32-year-old Jamie Skiffington, of Rotorua, shore 1410 sheep to break the eight-hours record for strong wool lambs on Wednesday.

In Goss’s corner in an historic woolshed at Mangamahu Valley property The Shades, farmed by father and 1985 Golden Shears Intermediate champion Alan Goss, was Southern Hawke’s Bay farmer Justin Bell, who with Whanganui shearer Sean Edmonds held the previous record of 1406, shorn on December 16, 2002, at Opepe Trust Farm, Taupō.

It was the third eight-hours strong wool lambs record shorn in New Zealand in 15 days, following Taihape shearer Reuben Alabaster’s solo record of 746 on December 20 and Te Kuiti man Jack Fagan’s new mark of 754 just two days later.

Neither Goss nor Skiffington was expected to challenge the solo mark, but each put in a particularly bold and consistent effort timed to perfection, the record-breaking 1407th lamb disappearing down the shute with about 20 seconds left.

Each making a record bid for the first time and shearing the standard eight-hour 7am-5pm day of four two-hour runs with breaks for morning and afternoon smoko and lunch, Goss finished with 715 (182, 179, 179, 175) and Skiffington shore 695 (166, 175, 177, 177).

They had one lamb each rejected by the five-man World Sheep Shearing Records Society judges, headed by Scotland official Andy Rankin.

When lunch was taken at the halfway stage at 11.30am, they had shorn 702, 18 less than the morning effort of Bell and Edmonds in their big shear 20 years earlier.

Record-breaking shearer Simon Goss (left) and Jamie Skiffington with the evidence of their triumph at The Shades on Wednesday. Photo / SSNZ

With wet weather having dominated the region, as evidenced by the multiple cleared slips on Mangamahu Rd and the erosion in the surrounding hills, 1660 lambs were penned under cover overnight, after the judges had given the go-ahead when the wool from 20 lambs shorn in the pre-record wool-weight on Tuesday afternoon averaged 0.925kg, just meeting the minimum requirement.

Bell, having watched from the closest of angles and having experienced the pain of records at both eight and nine hours, said the two shearers were under pressure “from the word go”, as the eight-hour record lived up to its reputation with the peak requirements of the 120-minute runs.

“It’s a true physical battle,” he said. “That good, old Kiwi attitude: They never gave up.”

Judging convener Rankin, who was also involved at Welsh shearer Lloyd Rees’s British-breed record of 902 lambs in nine hours in Wales in August, said at Mangamahu: “These records are pretty tough. This was a real tough one.”

“It’s been an absolute privilege to be here to watch these guys go through hell to achieve it,” he said.

The woolshed was at near capacity with onlookers and volunteers, including Golden Shears world champion and record-breaker John Kirkpatrick, and Goss’s sister and women’s rugby star Sarah Hirini.

It doubled as a Heart Foundation fundraiser, in a poignant gesture to the death of Goss’s mother, former Golden Shears Open woolhandling champion Ronnie Goss, who died while at a competition in Taumarunui in 2021.