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Shearing takes another step forward with the TAB's punt on a speed shear at the Ford Ranger New Zealand Rural Games in Palmerston North this weekend.
The TAB will be taking bets from account holders on the winner of the New Zealand Speed Shearing Championships on Sunday – the last day of the three-day Rural Games in the Palmerston North square, Te Marae o Hine.
The event will match 10 shearers, chosen for their commitment to both speed shear events and show competitions throughout the country, Shearing Sports New Zealand chairman and King Country shearing legend Sir David Fagan said.
Fagan retired from competitive shearing a few months after winning the inaugural Rural Games Speed Shear in Queenstown in 2015.
There have been six different winners at the Rural Games, with Fagan's 2015 win followed by Hawke's Bay guns Rowland Smith and Dion King who won in 2016 and 2017 respectively, Manawatu shearer Jimmy Samuels in 2018, third Hawke's Bay winner Cam Ferguson in 2019, and son-of-the-legend Jack Fagan last year.
Recently passing 50 wins in open-class speed shears in New Zealand and Australia, Samuels has been installed a $3.20 favourite to win, with regular rivals Jack Fagan and Masterton's Paerata Abraham on the second line at $4.50.
Southland shearers Brett Roberts and Samuels' brother, Leon Samuels, going for a first South Island win, are on the next line at $6.50, followed by Smith at $8.00, veteran King Country speedster Digger Balme and rising Northland star Toa Henderson next at $13.00, with Gore pair Ringakaha Paewai and Lionel Taumata the $21.00 outsiders.
The competition will follow an elimination process with slowest shearers on the day disappearing round-by-round until just two are left to match-race over two sheep each.
Shearing Sports New Zealand officially qualified and appointed judges will oversee the competition with ability to disqualify if quality standards are not met.
Shearing has been recognised by Sport New Zealand as a sport for almost 30 years, with the TAB first adding the shearing sports to its fixed-odds Sports Betting options in 1999 – less than three years after introducing betting on sport.
It has continued on the Golden Shears in Masterton each year, the New Zealand Shears shearing and woolhandling championships in Te Kuiti, and occasionally other events.
The TAB was to have taken bets on this year's Golden Shears, until they were cancelled last week because of the Covid-19 alert levels uncertainties.
It expects to be taking bets on the New Zealand Shears being held this year on April 8-10.
TAB sport trading manager Scott Dowdall said that with the Golden Shears cancelled, the Palmerston North event on Sunday gives a new chance for the shearing sports to continue the legacy with the TAB enjoyed by such major sports as rugby, cricket and boxing.
It'll be possible the shortest sports event on which the TAB has taken bets, although the shortest distances of greyhound races take under 20 seconds, he said.
"A speed shear is something different," he said.
"We'll see how it goes."