Record-breaking summer ahead

December 6, 2015

Four World shearing records will be attempted in New Zealand from just before Christmas to late January in what could be biggest season’s attack on the records book since record-breaking rules were first put in place almost 50 years ago.

World Sheep Shearing Records Society secretary Hugh McCarroll has received four applications, while he awaits confirmation of two other record bids in February, one in Australia.

The first bid will be for a vacant three-stand strongwool ewes record over eight hours at Big Hill Station, west of Hastings, on December 22, featuring Hawke’s Bay shearers Errol and nephew Kalin Chrystal and Shelford Wilcox, from Gisborne.

In what is expected to be the highest-profile bid, multiple Australia-based Te Kuiti shearer Stacey Te Huia, originally from Marton, will on January 5 make his third attempt on the premier solo strongwool record of 721 ewes in nine hours record at Mangarata-Taratahi Ag Training Centre, Te Ore Ore, just northeast of Masterton.

Southern Hawke’s Bay shearer Rodney Sutton, now based in the South Island, set the record in January 2007.

Te Huia, who at the age of 35 will be making his eighth record attempt dating back to a two-stand record with brother Hayden in 1999, set the eight-hours solo record of 603 ewes in 2010, and has an official best nine-hours tally of 674, in a two-stand record with Waikaretu contractor Sam Welch in January 2012.

Two attempts on the solo nine-hours record, in 2013 and last year, were called off during the day as the tallies fell behind the run-by-run targets, although in the 2013 attempt Te Huia carried-on to shear a personal best shed tally of 703.

He bounced from the second miss last January by setting a merino ewes record of 530 in nine hours four weeks later near Dubbo, NSW.

South Island-based shearers Ringakaha Paewai and Aidan Copp will attempt to get into the record books for a second time when they are joined by Peter-Lee Ratima in a King Country woolshed on January 7. Their target will be the three-stand eight-hour strongwool lambs record of 1784, which was set in January 1999.

Paewai and Copp shore 618 and 586 respectively in a five-stand record last January at Puketiti, southwest of Pio Pio, also in King Country.

In the only other challenge confirmed with the society, Herlihy brothers Paul, Mark, Craig, Tim, Dean and Michael, from Taranaki, are angling for the vacant six-stand lambs record for eight hours.

They will cross the North Island for the January 26 bid at Paparatu Station, at Manutuke, near Gisborne, where Tim Herlihy is head-shepherd.

Shearers father John Herlihy, a shearing contractor in Inglewood for about 20 years before the family moved to Whangamomona 23 years ago, said all are capable of 500 in a day and the target would be 3000 – making it the biggest tally for any eight-hour record, surpassing the 2910 in the five-stand record 11 months ago.

To meet records eligibility criteria, the brothers will work at least 21 days beforehand for Matiere contractor Jessie Marshall before heading across the North Island to prepare in the days before the record bid.

Mr McCarroll is awaiting news on plans for Southland shearer Leon Samuels to tackle Te Huia’s eight-hour ewes record of 603 in Southland, possibly in early-February, while Australian shearer Beau Guelfi, who also shears in the Gisborne area for part of each year, is expected to attempt a solo finewool merino record north of Perth later in February.

He will target the eight-hour record of 466 set by Australia-based New Zealand shearer Cartwright Terry in 2003. Guelfi shore 461 during a three-stand record in April 2014.

ENDS

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