New Zealand Shears president Sir David Fagan (left) lines up with open speed shears finalists on the first night, alongside winner Reuben Alabaster, of Taihape. Runner-up and prolific speed shear winner Jack Fagan, of Te Kūiti, is third from left. Photo / Joanne Crawford
New Zealand Shears president Sir David Fagan (left) lines up with open speed shears finalists on the first night, alongside winner Reuben Alabaster, of Taihape. Runner-up and prolific speed shear winner Jack Fagan, of Te Kūiti, is third from left. Photo / Joanne Crawford
The 40th New Zealand Shears Shearing and Woolhandling Championships have begun in Te Kūiti, with a sense of nostalgia and transition because of the absence of two of the sport’s most successful competitors of the past 15 years.
Shearer Rowland Smith and woolhandler Joel Henare, each with more than 150open-class wins, announced they were winding down their careers after success at the Golden Shears in Masterton last month.
Smith, who exited with a second world individual shearing title, had 17 major wins at the New Zealand Shears between 2011 and 2023, with eight in the open championship, eight as North Island Shearer of the Year, and one in the NZ Shears Circuit final, including a rare clean sweep in 2017.
Henare won the NZ Shears open woolhandling title four times from 2010 to 2017.
He was most dominant at the Golden Shears, exiting with a unique treble: a 12th open woolhandling title and both individual and team crowns at the World Championships.
Their absence has left two clear TAB futures betting favourites in the defending champions, Northland shearer and 2025 and 2026 Golden Shears champion Toa Henderson, opening at $2, and Waitomo district hope Herbert at $2.50, going for a third NZ Shears open woolhandling title in a row.
There are plenty of other leading contenders lining up for the major titles as the championships end on Saturday night.
Henderson has dominated, with six wins in seven finals from Gore in the south to Warkworth in the north since mid-February, but others have also been perfecting their victory speeches.
The field includes Southland veteran Nathan Stratford, whose five wins during the season have taken him to a career total of 93 open victories since 1998.
Other winners during the season include Jack Fagan (with four, culminating in a national shearing circuit final victory at the Golden Shears) and Hawke’s Bay-based Scotland international Gavin Mutch, also with four victories.
With a special nostalgic appeal is another King Country favourite, Digger Balme, who competed in the first NZ Shears, which started as the King Country Shears, in 1985.
Now within four years of his SuperGold card, Balme has also won this season, at the A-grade Geyserland Shears in Rotorua in December.
He was also fifth in the opening-night open speed shear won by Reuben Alabaster, of Taihape, on Thursday.
Herbert’s leading opponents have barely a dozen open woolhandling titles between them, headed by Marton’s Logan Kamura, Taumarunui sisters Vinniye and Te Ana Phillips, and Eketāhuna sisters Ngaio Hanson and Marika Braddick, who both had wins at the Golden Shears, in the North Island Circuit and World Championships teams event respectively.
The first-day afternoon programme featured a clear Development teams match victory to the Canterbury-Marlborough team of Tye Meikle, of Ōamaru, Jacob Booth, of Timaru, and Tyran Smith, of Christchurch, beating King Country.
Southern Hawke’s Bay teenager Tahu Hauiti claimed the first New Zealand Shears title on offer with victory in the novice shearing final, to go with his first win, at the Central Hawke’s Bay A&P Show in November.
Mixing in the crowd on the opening day of the 40th NZ Shears in Te Kūiti are president and 17-times open shearing champion Sir David Fagan (black shirt) and Digger Balme (hand on hip). Balme was an original entry in 1985 and is still competing in the open class. Photo / Joanne Crawford
Taumarunui’s Taelor Tarrant, who won the senior speed shear, is the No 1 prospect for Saturday’s senior championship title with 10 wins behind him in 13 finals this season as he graduates to open-class next season.
There are titles from novice to open in shearing and woolhandling, and Te Kūiti’s own unique feature, a parent and son/daughter shearing event.
Thousands of people, including hundreds arriving by train from Auckland, will flock into the town’s main street on Saturday for the Great New Zealand Muster and the Running of the Sheep.
The shears, and a competition at the Oxford A&P Show in North Canterbury, also on Saturday, are the last of 56 shows during the Shearing Sports New Zealand season.
