Shearing: From Napier to Kojonup, world record bid

World record shearing hope and former Napier man Lou Brown yesterday at his base in Western Australia where he will attempt an an eight-hours ewes record on Saturday. Photo / Supplied

A former pupil of Napier's Colenso High School will on Saturday attempt to become the next shearer from Hawke's Bay to break a world record — shearing the hardened merinos of West Australia.

Lou Brown, now 31, was born and raised in Napier but moved to Australia when he was 13 and a student at Colenso, now William Colenso College.

He now lives in Bunbury, on the Western Australia coast and about 165km south of Perth. It is also about 180km west of where he will make the attempt on the solo eight-hour merino ewe-shearing record in a woolshed inland near Kojonup.

The record of 466 was set by Central North Island shearer Cartwright Terry, who set the mark in a two-stand record with brother Michael at Katanning, also in Western Australia, on February 22, 2003.

In a display of the shearing's camaraderie and sportsmanship, Saturday's bid is being organised by Cartwright Terry, who along with Brown flew across Australia to support New South Wales shearer Josh Clayton's ultimately unsuccessful bid for the same record.
In the record 16 years ago Terry shore consecutive two-hour run tallies of 114, 119, 118 and 113.

It has left challengers the tough goal of an average of over 58.375 sheep an hour to put their names into the books of the World Sheep Shearing Records Society.

It will be the fourth attempt on the record in just over five years, the now-Gisborne-based Beau Guelfi having fallen five short of the mark in a successful three-stand record attempt in New South Wales in 2014, and in 2016 abandoning midway an attempt in stiflingly hot conditions at Yathroo north of Perth.

Rules require the sheep in the merino ewes classification to average more than 3.4kg a sheep, but the sheep for Saturday are likely to be comfortably over the requirement. The wool for the Terry brothers' record in 2003 averaged 4.8kg a sheep.

Freezing weather was right against Clayton's March 28 attempt, which fell 14 short of the mark, but Brown, a solo dad with a son aged 12 and an 8-year-old daughter, can expect much better on Saturday with a forecast for sunny weather, temperatures up to 26C, and some breeze.