Shearing: North Island competitions start at Poverty Bay A and P Show

The annual Gisborne Shearing and Woolhandling Championships start today.

Shearers and woolhandlers are gathering in Gisborne for the first North Island competitions of the new season at the Poverty Bay A and P Show today and tomorrow.

The annual Gisborne Shearing and Woolhandling Championships open with a speed shear and woolhandling quick throw today, starting at 1 pm, while the main event, the shearing and woolhandling championships, is tomorrow, starting with lower grade heats at 8.30 am and ending with finals late-afternoon.

Competition will take place in the junior, intermediate, senior and open shearing grades and novice, junior, senior, and open woolhandling grades, at the first of a sequence of A and P Shows shearing and woolhandling competitions in the eastern and lower North Island region over the next month.

Further competitions are the Hawke’s Bay Show’s Great Raihania Shears in Hastings next Friday (October 20), the Wairarapa Spring Shears at Clareville (Carterton) on October 28, the Manawatu A and P Show at Manfeild on November 4, and the Central Hawke’s Bay A and P Show in Waipukurau on November 11.

The shows are part of a Shearing Sports New Zealand calendar of 60 competitions at venues as far apart as Kaikohe in the north and Winton in the south in a season that ends in April.

National title events already held were the New Zealand Merino Championships in Alexandra and the Waimate Spring Shears.

Also being held this weekend is the first shearing-only event at the Ellesmere A and P Society’s Selwyn Spring Show at Leeston on Saturday.

It is also part of a regional sequence of show competitions, being followed by the Northern A and P Show at Rangiora (October 21), Ashburton (October 28), Marlborough and Pleasant Point, both on November 4 and the New Zealand Agricultural Show’s Canterbury Shears and National Corriedales Shearing and Woolhandling Championships in Christchurch on November 16-17.