Show star fleeced for charity

Shagger the Tikokino ram before being relieved of his 18.8kg fleece at the Central Hawke's Bay A and P Show on Saturday. Photo / Doug Laing

Hawke's Bay's own 2015 vintage of Shrek, the late good-woolled sheep was shorn at the Central Hawke's Bay Show on Saturday by a retired former shearing champion who hadn't otherwise shorn a sheep for more than a year.

On the handpiece was 73-year-old retired Waipukurau shearer Tony O'Reilly, who, as a 26-year-old based in Kimbolton, was third in the Golden Shears Open final in Masterton in 1969. About five years earlier, he became one of the first to shear 500 sheep in a day.

Retired shearer and former Golden Shears Open finalist Tony O'Reilly puts the steel to the fleece as Shagger is shorn on the competition's charity day.

On Saturday the subject was "Shagger", a three-year-old lincoln ram which hadn't been shorn since September 2013, said Tikokino stud operator Bruce Worsnop.

Best known for his duties in the field rather than any prolific production of the national fibre, he had been part of Mr Worsnop's experiment to see how much wool a sheep could carry.

Central Otago hero Shrek was fleeced of 27kg in 2004, a New Zealand record beaten by much less-renowned Mackenzie Country wonder Big Ben's 28.9kg last year. Mr Worsnop gave up in the interests of Shagger's welfare, leaving the farmer dubious of a 40kg record claimed in Australia two months ago.

While everything else had been in established working order, the wool wasn't as big a fleece as he had once thought possible.

A lincoln ram with everything going for it can produce up to 1.3kg of wool a month, but not so for Shagger.

"He's been through two droughts," Mr Worsnop said. "The feller's had a couple of hard seasons."

With a breast cancer fundraising project linked to the show, where Mr Worsnop was in charge of the wool fleece section and which has one of New Zealand's biggest A and P Show sheep divisions, it was time for Shagger to do his bit for charity.

A competition was run to guess the weight of the fleece, which hit 18.8kg on the scales.

It took a bit of skill, as shown by Kena Te Whata, who over-guessed by just one kilogram.

Te Whata was the Golden Shears intermediate shearing champion in 1976, and in Australia has shorn merino rams and wethers which would dwarf the nevertheless substantial Shagger of Tikokino.