Golden Shears: Shear speed on show

It's been a hometown double in the fastest shear of all at the 60th Golden Shears in Masterton – the Speedshear.

The big win last night went to shearing contractor Paerata Abraham who retained the Open Speedshear title with a time of 19.19sec in the final against Rangiora shearer Hugh De Lacy.

Chris Dickson won the Senior Speedshear with a final time of 22.522sec, beating Eketahuna shearer Paora Moanaroa by 0.16 seconds.

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• Golden Shears results: Hawke's Bay competitors dominate on first day

The Speedshears attracted 24 entries in each class and while Abraham claimed the major prize of $800, his winning effort was not the fastest time of the night.

That honour went to Northland shearer Marshall Guy, of Kaeo, who shore 19.182sec in the semi-finals, only to be disqualified as judges enforced strict quality rules.

The other beaten open-grade semifinalist was Hemi Braddick, of Eketahuna, while the beaten senior semifinalists were Paulie Smith, of Taumarunui, and Gethin Lewis, of Wales.

Te Kuiti shearer Jack Fagan, who won the All Nations Speedshear preliminary to the world shearing and woolhandling championships in France last July, was eliminated tonight in the quarterfinals.

Meanwhile the championships' third day has started with open shearing and woolhandling heats during the day, each with hot-favourite at the TAB which opened its annual Golden Shears options earlier this week.

Hawke's Bay shearer Rowland Smith was a $1.16 favourite to win a seventh Golden Shears Open shearing title, in the glamour final on Saturday night, while Joel Henare, from Gisborne but based mainly in the Southland was paying $1.35 to win the woolhandling final.

A transtasman woolhandling test match will take place tonight, with New Zealand's world champion pairing of Sheree Alabaster, of Taihape, and Pagan Karauria, of Alexandra, warmly favoured to win.

Despite being dominated by Australia in much of the last decade, New Zealand was marginally favoured to win the shearing test match on Saturday night.