Kirkpatrick ruled out

John Kirkpatrick is out of action for the season and will miss the Golden Shears but hopes to be back for the New Zealand championships in April. Photo / Doug Laing

Injury will force multiple Golden Shears champion John Kirkpatrick to miss Masterton's big annual shearing and woolhandling championships next month for the first time since he first entered, and won, in 1993.

The 44-year-old Napier shearer, whose eight major victories at the Golden Shears include four in the glamour open final, has been out of action since suffering a rotator cuff injury in his right shoulder in the United Kingdom last July and underwent surgery in December.

Now out of his sling, he will see his specialist before the end of the month, and says: "We'll see how it goes."

While it's likely to be too late for the Golden Shears, he hopes he will be back in competition nick by the New Zealand Championships in Te Kuiti on April 9-11, the swansong of legendary King Country shearer David Fagan, who had won the Golden Shears open final 12 times in a row before Kirkpatrick ended the run in 2002 with the first of his wins.

Also the winner of the Golden Shears junior title in 1993 and the Senior title in 1994, Kirkpatrick also won the open final in 2008, 2011, and 2012.

Other big wins on the Golden Shears stage were in the world teams championship in 2012, and the PGG Wrightson National Circuit final in 2013.

Kirkpatrick also won a world teams title in Norway in 2008, and the New Zealand Championships open finals in Te Kuiti in 2008, 2009 and 2012.

He has been Shearing Sports New Zealand's top-ranked open-class shearer for the past eight years, a record not even matched by Fagan who was No1 for the first six years after rankings were introduced in 1994.

Kirkpatrick's injury happened on the New Zealand team's Elders Primary Wool UK Tour, and forced him out of the third of the four tests, when he was replaced by England-based Matt Smith.

He shore in the fourth test, but, back home, it became obvious how serious it was, and as a result he's missing the two home tests against Wales.