Matt Smith (left) after the big win at the Royal Bath and West Show with Simon Tangery, managing director of the UK arm of shearing equipment giant Heiniger. Photo / Supplied
Matt Smith (left) after the big win at the Royal Bath and West Show with Simon Tangery, managing director of the UK arm of shearing equipment giant Heiniger. Photo / Supplied
A former Hawke's Bay shearer turned award-winning UK farmer will represent England at next year's Golden Shears world shearing and woolhandling championships in Scotland.
Matt Smith, who with wife Pippa farms award-winning farm Trefrank in Cornwall, claimed the first of the two machine-shearing positions in the team when he wonthe England Shearing Championship final at the Royal Bath and West Show at Shepton Mallet, Somerset, early on Saturday (NZ time).
With brother and Hawke's Bay shearer Rowland Smith having won the world title in Ireland in 2014, it had been a dream to get to the next championships, at the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh next June.
To get himself into the right form on the day, and eventually winning a six-man final over 20 sheep each by just 0.2pts from runner-up Stu Connor, Matt Smith had been competing regularly in recent weeks and won at the Royal Ulster Show at Balmoral, Belfast, in May, with two other wins before the triumph last week.
Brother Rowland, who was beaten by Welsh shearer Richard Jones in the 2019 world final in France, is also hoping to make another challenge, with the 2023 New Zealand team set to be chosen through the season from October to next April.
The two have both been world-beaters in the woolshed, Matt being the current holder of the world nine-hours ewe-shearing record of 831, and Rowland holding the eight-hour record of 744 – both tallies having been shorn at Trefrank. Each had previously set records in Hawke's Bay.
