The race for Kiwi shearer No 2 is wide open

The race for Kiwi shearer No 2 is wide open

Two Open shearing finals more than 1200km apart over the weekend have added an extra edge to a race for a World championships position which is shaping as the most intriguing contest in New Zealand shearing in years.

The wins were by Manawatu shearer Aaron Haynes at the Kumeu Show near Auckland and rising Southland contender Casey Bailey at the Mayfield A and P Show in Canterbury.

They are among a lineup of at least seven in strong contention for the second machine shearing position in the New Zealand team for the World shearing and woolhandling championships in France on July 1-7.

It is in contrast to the near one-man race for the first position claimed by Hawke’s Bay gun Rowland Smith when he won his 6th Golden Shears Open title in Masterton on March 2, his 13th win in an unbeaten run since his first competition of the New Year in Wairoa on January 19..

All seven have won finals in Smith’s absence during the 2018-2019 season, and are expected to be the champion’s toughest opposition in the New Zealand Championships Open final in Te Kuiti on March 30, which will decided the second member of the team.

The win at Kumeu was just the second Open final win for two-times Golden Shears Open final runner-up Haynes, and the first in New Zealand for former New Zealand Senior champion Bailey, who was runner-up in the South Island Shearer of the Year final in Gore last month.

Bailey has however won two crossbred finals in Australia, beating Australian team legends Shannon Warnest (at Lucindale) and Jason Wingfield (at Edenhope) in 2017.

Others prominent in the race for the second New Zealand team position are Kumeu runner-up Mark Grainger, of Te Kuiti, third placegetter and reigning World champion John Kirkpatrick, of Hawke’s Bay, and Southland hopes Nathan Stratford and Troy Pyper, of Invercargill, and Brett Roberts, of Mataura.

ENDS

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