Hawke's Bay shearer joins battle for crown

Dannevirke shearer Adam Brausch has loomed as yet another Hawke's Bay prospect for the Golden Shears open title next month by winning the final at his home-town show last Friday.
Only his second Open-class win since ending a successful lower grades career with a New Zealand Championships senior title in 2004, it was an important victory heading into a long-standing, four-week shearing grand slam, culminating in the six-man Golden Shears final on March 5.
Most of the top-liners were missing when Brausch broke through for his maiden win in the top grade at the Wairarapa Show in October.
But, last Friday, foremost Golden Shears prospects Cam Ferguson (the current champion), John Kirkpatrick (the 2002 and 2008 winner) and star David Fagan were all there at the start of a busy weekend, which also propelled two others into the reckoning.
The next day, 2005 and 2007 winner and 2008 world champion Paul Avery, 44, won the North Island Open Championship final at the Rangitikei Shearing Sports in Marton, an unusual prelude to his next big challenge - the Coast to Coast cycling, running and kayak marathon across the South Island tomorrow and Saturday.
The other to emerge as a prospect was Te Kuiti-based Digger Balme who shore eight Golden Shears open finals from 1991 to 2005, with the best result being runner-up to Fagan in 1998.
Known for his entertaining approach, he was runner-up to Kirkpatrick at the Aria Sports in the King Country on Sunday, his third final in three days. On Saturday, he had burned them all off in the six-man final at Marton, shearing 20 sheep in 14min 5.35sec, but was penalised out of contention and had to settle for the minor money, having taken a similar course at Dannevirke on Friday.
In the Aotea Sports Club's inaugural Speedshear on Friday night, Fagan achieved some sort of dream when he won his seventh speedshear final of the season, with a fastest time of 19.56sec.
With teenager Jack winning the junior/intermediate cleanshear, it was the first time father-and-son had won on the same programme. Jack had earlier won the intermediate final over four sheep at the A&P show.
The other big winners from Hawke's Bay at the weekend were Waipawa teenager Tui Pene who won the North Island championships junior final, his biggest win in two seasons of shearing, and Dallas Mihaere, of Dannevirke, who beat national representatives Ronnie Goss, of Kimbolton, and Keryn Herbert, of Te Awamutu, in the Open woolhandling final.
It reinforced her credentials at the top level after an early-season win at the New Zealand Spring Shear in Waimate.
Most of the country's top shearers line up tomorrow and Saturday in the Otago Championships in Balclutha, and will include the Southern Shears in Gore a week later and the Pahiatua Shears on February 27 in their race form before the Golden Shears.
The build-up will establish Brausch's prospect, as it did for shearing mate Ferguson last year before he qualified for the Shears' final for the first time and won the title.