Sheep shearing record on Monday

Three Waikato shearers are facing the daunting task of shearing lambs at lee than 47 seconds each for 8 hours to crack a World record in a remote King Country woolshed on Monday.

Shearing at Ingleby Farms’ Puketiti Station, on Huku Rd southwest of Piopio, Coel L’Huillier, Kaleb Foote and Daniel Langlands will have to average over 608 of the romney-coopworth lambs to break the three-stand strongwool lambs record of 1825.

It was set in another King Country woolshed almost two years ago, with individual tallies of 614 to Welsh international Matthew Evans, 609 to New Zealand shearer Ryan Miller, and 602 to Te Kuiti-based Welsh gun Delwyn Jones.

Employer and New Zealand Shearing Contractors Association president Mark Barrowcliffe, of Piopio, believes L’Huillier and Foote are each capable of breaking 700 for the first time, while Langlands, a former Chiefs Development squad rugby player, is targeting 600 for the first time.

“He’ll do it,” said the boss, who does, however, have his fingers crossed pending a wool-weigh on Sunday which will determine whether the record goes ahead.

A pre-record sample shear of 20 lambs from the target flock of about 2300, in front of a five man World Sheep Shearing Records Society judging panel headed by Australian Peter Artridge, must average at least 0.9kg and Barrowcliffe says it’ll be a close call.

“There hasn’t been a lot of sun up there this week, and the lambs are young,” he said.

L’Huillier has featured in two previous records, firstly in 2013 when he shore 518 in helping establish a five-stand record of 2638 near Kawakawa Bay.

While that record was broken two years later, L’Huillier got back into the books with 537 ewes in a two-stand ewes record of 1068 in January 2017.

Foote, who has also been in the Waikato rugby selection frame in the past, won the New Zealand Shears Intermediate shearing final in Te Kuiti in 2015, but Langlands has not ventured often into competition, although, Barrowcliffe says, he’s tested himself in front of crowds in Speedshear events and as a resident shearer for the woolhandling competitions at the New Zealand Shears.

Monday’s record bid is set to start at 7am, with four 2-hour runs separated by 30-minutes for each of the morning and afternoon tea breaks and an hour for lunch. It finishes at 5pm.

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