Big day out in HB bodes well for UK record bid

The day after - Nick Greaves and partner and woolhandler Kate Clarke back at the motel quarters in Napier. Photo/Doug Laing

A shearing record attempt in England in August will have a Hawke's Bay background after a challenger's nine-hour blowout on some of the toughest lamb shearing in the World — the pumice sheep of Tarawera country.

Nick Greaves, 25, from Gayton, Staffordshire, shore 763 of Tarawera Station's "highland" lambs in what was as much of a test for the gear as it was for the shearer.

He says it was done under conditions as close to shearing record rules as possible, but the impact of the pumice was a world removed with what must have been a near record use of 42 combs and more than 200 cutters.

Shearers have observed that in terms of preparing for a record bid it might be the comparable of wearing a 50kg backpack while training for a marathon.

Greaves, who with fellow English shearer Dean Nelmes is planning an attack on a two-stand UK lamb shearing record, said he was only onto his third lamb of the day, about two minutes after the 5am start, that he knew it was time to make his first cutter change of the day.

In non-pumice shearing of lambs in Hawke's Bay he would expect to change cutters every quarter-hour, or about once every 20 lambs.

Employer and shearing contractor Brendan Mahony said that with the dry weather and winds the pumice effect appeared to have been even more notorious than usual this summer, perhaps with sheep rubbing up against banks as they shelter from the sun and the wind.

Heiniger shearing gear research and development manager Selwyn Williams, a New Zealander based in Perth but who was at Tarawera for part of the day, said shearing sheep with pumice in the wool and the consequent high use of cutting gear was not unusual.

He said he been speaking to a shearer in Australia who "just the other day" struggled to a tally of 160 on merinos, and used about 130 cutters.

"You've got to change sooner rather than later," he said.

Tallies of more than 800 lambs in nine hours have been shorn in Hawke's Bay, but 763 in pumice country is particularly tough work, and Greaves had Tuesday off, partly because trainer Pete Chilcott reckoned he needed it. He spent most of it regrinding the cutters.

The conditions weren't unusual for Greaves, who has shorn seven seasons in New Zealand, five of them in Hawke's Bay for Mahony, for whom Nelmes also worked several seasons ago.

Both have had competition success, Greaves finishing fourth in both the World Championships All-Nations and Golden Shears Senior finals in 2017, and Nelmes having represented England at those 2017 World Championships, in Invercargill.

Their goal is the UK two-stand, nine-hours record of 1467 set by multiple World championships competitor Gareth Daniel and fellow Welsh shearer Ian Jones in 2016.

Greaves, whose previous best on any lambs had been 603 in a day, said he established the dream of breaking a record while watching and helping at such records as those set by Hawke's Bay brothers Matt and Rowland Smith in England.

Nelmes, who has shorn recently in Australia and is now back in the UK and who is yet to do a tally over 600, asked Greaves about six months ago if he would join him in a record attempt.

Rowland Smith was there on Monday to help, along with Chilcott and Williams, and a range of others, including partner and woolhandler Kate Clarke, also from Staffordshire.

After a season which included seven-days-a-week for seven weeks in the busy pre-Christmas period, they head home on February 6, via a brief holiday in Fiji.