King looks to another crown

IN FORM: Dion King is back in the Golden Shears reckoning after a weekend of upset wins.PHOTO/FILE

Hastings shearer Dion King added even more spark to the Golden Shears mix when he completed a weekend of upsets by winning the Pahiatua Shears open title on Sunday.

King, 37, had competed only sparingly this season and hadn't won any event since October 2012 but, by beating all the other top hopes for shearing's biggest event next Saturday in Masterton, King showed he is in the right form to qualify for an eighth Golden Shears open final, go one better than when runner-up last year, and to repeat the win he had in 2006.

Sunday's victory meant the three TAB favourites for the Golden Shears - defending Golden Shears champion Rowland Smith, of Hastings, Napier shearer and four-times winner John Kirkpatrick, and Te Kuiti legend David Fagan - were all left without a win in the weekend's big three pre-shears events.

On Friday, Te Kuiti shearer Mark Grainger had his maiden open-class victory in the Taumarunui Jamboree Shears Open final, beating Fagan, Kirkpatrick and Smith, who were second, third and fourth respectively.

On Saturday, Smith and Kirkpatrick were second and third respectively as Pongaroa farmer David Buick successfully defended the Apiti Sports title in northern Manawatu.

At Pahiatua, Smith and Kirkpatrick were second and third, again, followed by Southland hope Nathan Stratford, Buick and Fagan.

With 16 Golden Shears open wins to his name from 1986 to 2009 and still a real winning hope at the age of 52, Fagan is as enthralled as anyone about the contest emerging in Masterton, where the winner will also claim selection for the 16th world championships, to be held in Gorey, Ireland, in May.

"Anything could happen," said Fagan, who did, however, still manage to claim one winning cheque during the weekend, with a Saturday night Speedshear victory at the Cheltenham Hotel, between Apiti and Feilding.

Meanwhile, a gun East Coast woolhandler who has been off the winning scene for several years has scored a popular victory by toppling some of the modern-day giants of the sport at Apiti in northern Manawatu.

Regarded as a matriarch in the shearing industry, Ailsa Fleming, from Te Karaka, a former New Zealand representative who was bestowed Master Woolhandler status more than 10 years ago, won the Apiti Sports Open woolhandling final on Saturday.

She left in her wake such top competitors as world 2010 teams champions Keryn Herbert and Sheree Alabaster (who also won the world individual title in 2008), and former Golden Shears champion Ronnie Goss.

Alabaster failed to make the final, in which Herbert was second. Marton's Logan Kamura was third, and fourth was Goss, the Kimbolton veteran who had won the Taumarunui Jamboree Open woolhandling final on Friday.

The top woolhandlers head for the Pre-Shears Championships tomorrow at Massey University's Riverside Farm at Mikimiki, north of Masterton, featuring the final round in a year-long world championships selection series, which ends with a trial over the next three days at the Golden Shears in Masterton, to find two representatives for the championships in Ireland in May. Other features in the woolhandling at the Golden Shears will be the open final and a transtasman test match.