DOUG LAING
Porangahau shearer Rodney Sutton today started work in the King Country woolshed where he will on Friday tackle the world ewe-shearing record which has stood for 10 years.
Shearing at Mangapehi where fellow Hawke's Bay shearer Dion King sheared a world record 866 lambs in nine hours on January 10,
the 39-year-old Sutton will be after the solo nine-hour ewe record of 720, held by Southlander Darin Forde since January 28, 1997.
Sutton has been shearing around the Rotorua-Taupo region since the end of last month and in a blow out 10 days ago recorded a personal best of 731 ewes in a day.
He said it was his first ewe tally over 700 - "actually, I hadn't done much over 600".
He is no stranger to tally-shearing, having held the world lamb-shearing record for four years, with 839 in a nine-hour day in December 2000.
Last year, without the conditions which apply to official record attempts, he sheared a phenomenal 1103 lambs in a day in the Bay of Plenty, just to prove to himself it could be done after South Island shearer Wayne Ingram sheared 946 in a day.
Sutton still holds a world two-stand lamb record set in 1997, and said that when he did the solo tally three years later, he thought "that was it".
He went farming, but was stirred again when former record holder John Fagan, on whose farm Friday's bid will take place, suggested late in 2005 that he should have another go.
Fagan, who sheared 623 ewes in a day in 1981 to hold the record for just under a year, doesn't underestimate the task.
"It takes a lot of guts just to give the record a go," he said. "Over the course of the day he's going to carry 30 to 40 tonnes of sheep on to that board. That's a lot of work."
