VICTOR: Shearer Cam Ferguson completed a hat-trick of wins. PHOTO / FILE
Man on a mission Cam Ferguson won the Hawke's Bay Show's Great Raihania Shears for the first time on Friday, completing a treble of wins at three shows in his home province.
Determined this season to return to the form which saw him become Golden Shears and world champion in 2010, the Waipawa shearer said afterwards it was a proud moment when he added the title in Hastings to his home show Central Hawke's Bay win in Waipukurau and the Wairoa A&P Show ribbon he won last season.
The 30-year-old's success came in the absence of fellow Hawke's Bay stars John Kirkpatrick and Rowland Smith, representing New Zealand in a transtasman test in Australia, while five-times winner Dion King, of Hastings, and King Country icon David Fagan were both surprise eliminations in the semifinals.
But Ferguson was still able to produce a dramatic final, in front of a frenzied crowd of over 400 packing the shearing pavilion at the 150th anniversary show.
He and rare open finalist Peter Chilcott, originally from Otorohanga, waged a torrid battle for time honours in the four-man, 20-sheep final, barely a blow separating them as they each finished in 19min 3sec.
The two, who in 2003 won the New Zealand intermediate and senior titles respectively in Te Kuiti, were also the two fastest in Friday's heats (with the same time) and semifinals (separated by just 0.1sec).
In the final, both finished more than a sheep ahead of the next man off, Napier-based Northlander Doug Smith, and two sheep ahead of the other finalist, Feilding's Murray Henderson.
Ferguson, winner of a second New Zealand Spring Shears title a fortnight ago in Waikato and last weekend runner-up to Kirkpatrick at the Poverty Bay Show, also produced the best combined board and pen quality and claimed victory by a comfortable 3.1pts.
Masterton-based Riverton shearer Caisey Bailey, 22, a late-bloomer last season when he made three senior finals, including third at the Golden Shears, had his maiden victory by beating former prolific junior and intermediate winner and second-year senior competitor Michael Riolston, of Levin, by more than four points in Friday's senior final.
Catherine Mullooly, of Matawai, won the intermediate final, emulating a feat achieved by fellow female shearer Ingrid Baynes in 2008, and Marley Waihape, of Mataura, won the junior final, having earlier incurred just two penalties in board judging of his two sheep in the heats. Flaxmere College student Whakapunaki Maraki, 14, won Hawke's Bay's first novice schools event, held in front of just a few people on the first day of the show, and repeated the effort in a novice shear in front of the capacity Great Raihania Shears crowd.
Gisborne competitors made a clean sweep of the three woolhandling events, headed by world and Golden Shears champion Joel Henare, whose open final win completed a successful defence of the Poverty Bay-Hawke's Bay double he won last year.
The runner-up was Maryanne Baty, also of Gisborne.
Foonie Waihape won Friday's senior woolhandling title, in her first New Zealand final since finishing runner-up in the 2012 Golden Shears, while Vivian Taitapanui scored a maiden victory in the junior final.
There were 76 shearing entries and 40 in woolhandling classes in the 10th Great Raihania Shears since a shearing competition was revived at the Hawke's Bay Show in 2004 and named after pioneering shearer Rimitiriu Raihania.
At the Hawke's Bay A&P Show in 1902 he won what is thought to have been the first machine-shearing competition in the world.
There are four more North Island competitions before Christmas, with the Wairarapa Spring Shears next Saturday at Carterton, the CHB Shears a week later in Waipukurau, the Stratford A&P Shears on November 23, and the Royal Show Manawatu Shears at Manfeild on December 8.