Pauline Bolay shearing during the record. Photo / Supplied
Canadian shearer Pauline Bolay is back at work in a Waikato woolshed today, little the worse for wear from her world record 510 lambs in an eight-hour day on Saturday.
Bolay, was the first female from the Northern Hemisphere to attempt a world shearing record, and came away with the women's solo eight-hour strong wool lambs record at Whitford Farms in the Waikaretu Valley, between Auckland and Hamilton.
Beating her previous best one day tally by about 100 lambs, she passed New Zealand shearer Kerry-Jo Te Huia's eight-year-old record of 507 with less than three minutes to go, and it could have been better.
Two other lambs shorn during the day were disqualified on quality grounds by the panel of World Sheep Shearing Society judges, including convenor Grant Borchardt, from Australia.
The Coopworth lambs which, unusually for record attempts in New Zealand, came from three different properties, comfortably met the minimum requirement of 0.9kg of wool each, with an average of over 1.1kg when 20 were lambs were shorn in the statutory wool-weigh on Friday.
Starting at 7am on Saturday and finishing at 5pm, with the four two-hour shearing runs separated by 30-minute breaks for morning and afternoon tea and an hour for lunch, Bolay needed to average under 56.7 seconds a lamb or at least 63.5 lambs an hour, caught, shorn and dispatched.
Bolay had huge support, in particular from employers and record-bid managers Emily and Sam Welch, both also record-holders. It was in the same woolshed in 2007, just days after first arriving in New Zealand, that Bolay watched Emily Welch shear a nine-hour record of 648.
Sam Welch said some "very clever calls" were made in what was the "most-strategic" shearing record attempt he'd seen.
Welch was right beside Bolay as coach and clock-watcher for all 480 minutes, and the Canadian was right on target with 127 in the first two hours.
Temperatures reached well over 20degC during the attempt, a far cry from the minus 20degC Bolay was used to back home in Canada.
She followed up with 125 in the two hours to lunch, and afternoon tallies of 131, and 127 in front of a woolshed packed with spectators and supporters at the end.
"I knew she had to be on the mark by lunch," said Welch, who in 2012 shore 674 ewes in a two-stand record over nine hours, shearing with Stacey Te Huia.
"I had to give the same speech that Stacey and I were given at lunch at our record. If you want this record you have to empty the tank this run, and then run on momentum in the last".
Records society secretary Hugh McCarroll said it was an emotional end for Bolay.
However, the Canadian had recovered 24 hours later, saying: "I'm feeling pretty good, still on a high … everything's (going) crazy".
"I was pretty emotional because it was a dream come true" she told a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation journalist two days later.
"So many people were cheering me on and supporting me. It was just like… we had done it".
She spoke of the camaraderie of the woolshed, saying:
"I just love working and the challenge of improving every day. You can always shear a sheep faster. You can always shear a sheep cleaner. There's always something you can do better, so it's never boring".
The glaringly-humble Bolay wasn't daunted by the fact that the target on Saturday was 25 per cent more than she'd ever done before in the woolshed.
She'd seen several others going through similar ordeals, from Emily Welch's record 12 years ago, to the first women's eight-hour record in 2009, and Kerri-Jo Te Huia's success in breaking it.
"It was a big number to get to, for sure. But it was do-able, and Sam was very valuable. He told me beforehand he'd get me through all the lows".
"It was one sheep at a time, all day".
Bolay was now intent on improving her daily tallies at work and will return to Canada for a family wedding at the end of January.
However, she was tempted to return for New Zealand competitions later, including the Golden Shears in Masterton on March 4-7.
- Two other world record bids are expected in New Zealand this summer, with Stacey Te Huia to attempt a merino wethers (fine wool) record near Ranfurly in Central Otago on January 4, and four women gathering for a rare women's multi-stand record bid at Waihi-Pukawa, near Turangi in the Central North Island, on January 23.