Manawatu Show Shears Bounces Back After Three-year Recess

The Manawatu and West Coast A and P Show’s shearing and woolhandling championships are back with organisers hoping for a full field of entries in Feilding on Saturday after three years in recess.

The championships fell victim to Covid restrictions in 2020 and 2021 and were unable to be revived last year, but 800 sheep are now lined-up for a fleecing at the show at Manfeild.

Shearing judge Marcel Thwaites, of Feilding, said that when the question was asked if the championships would start-up again there had been an enthusiastic response, including that of two farmers providing the sheep, one from nearby Halcombe and the other from near Ratana.

Competition, starting at 8.30am, will take place in 9 grades - the Open, Senior, Intermediate, Junior and Novice classes in shearing, and Open, Senior, Junior and Novice in woolhandling.

Hoggets are being shorn on the four-stands set-up as the competition returns to the 7750 square metres Manfeild Park Stadium, with full-wool available for the morning events, and the woolhandling, which is part of the North Island Open, Senior and Junior Woolhandling Circuit.

Competitors are advised to use the Kawakawa Rd entrance, which enables parking closer to the stadium, and are also advised to have account details available as major cash prizes will be paid through on-line banking.

Winners at the last Manawatu Show shears in 2020 came from as far as Gisborne and Taumarunui in the north, Mangamahu Valley in the west, Pongaroa in the East, and Masterton in the south.

In the shearing they were David Buick (Open), Simon Goss (Senior), Daniel Biggs (Intermediate), Adam Gordon (Junior) and Josh Devane (Novice) and in the woolhandling Logan Kamura (Open), Tramon Campbell (Senior), Vinniye Phillips (Junior) and Topia Barrowcliffe (Pio Pio).

It’s the 4th show of the season in successive weekends in the North Island, one of three shows nationwide on Saturday but the only one in the North Island, and one of 59 in the Shearing Sports New Zealand season from the end of September to early April.

The other Saturday competitions are shearing–only events at the Marlborough A and P Show in Blenheim and the Get to the Point Pleasant Point Gymkhana in South Canterbury.

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