Record-breaker Floyde Neil being kept up to the mark by Koen Black (left) who set a world record on October 27. Photo / Taesa Brown
Record-breaker Floyde Neil being kept up to the mark by Koen Black (left) who set a world record on October 27. Photo / Taesa Brown
Australia-based Taumarunui shearer Floyde Neil set a new world record earlier this month but already faces a challenge, in a wave of shearing record bids after the reopening of borders.
Neil, son of a record-breaking King Country shearer Roger Neil, set a solo eight-hour Australian crossbred lamb record of 527.
The attempt took place on November 13, near Kojonup, which is close to Neil’s current hometown of Boyup Brook in West Australia.
But another Kiwi is hot on his heels.
Former record-holder Aidan Copp, from Canterbury, who shore 524 near Wagga Wagga, NSW, in August 2019, is ready to hunt the record down again.
It will be the first of two record bids Copp will make a week apart in Tasmania early in the New Year.
He’ll make the attempt on February 18, and on February 25 will shear the lambs’ mothers in a bid to crack the crossbred ewes record of 497, set in April 2019 by Australia-based Lou Brown, originally from Napier.
They’re among six more record bids on the books of the World Sheep Shearing Records Society for the summer in a post-lockdowns flourish which has already seen three new marks set in the last four months.
Neil was overwhelmed with emotion after setting his record, which was delayed three years by pandemic lockdowns and border closures and almost called off after a health scare three months earlier.
Among numerous family and friends present, including several who had travelled from New Zealand, was dad Roger, who is still the joint-holder of a four-stand nine-hour strong wool lamb record shorn near Turangi almost 15 years ago.
And a key player on the board was Dunedin-born Koen Black, who on October 27 shore an eight-hour Merino lamb record of 606, also in West Australia.
Neil won the New Zealand Shears senior final in Te Kuiti in a busy 2014-2015 season which yielded five wins in 13 finals and has established a revered reputation in the shorter competition form of speed shearing in Australia.
But even with all the support in the Slab Hut woolshed, including the sizeable work crew, it was still a tough day, as he had to average about 54.85 seconds a lamb - caught, shorn and despatched - or 131.25 lambs for each two-hour run during the day.
Floyde Neil, from Taumarunui, on his way to a new solo eight-hour world crossbred lamb record of 527 in West Australia on November 13. Photo / Taesa Brown
Neil started on pace with 132 from 7 am to the first break at 9 am but fell off the pace with 126 in the next run to lunch.
The hour-long break did the job, and he belted out 140 in the two hours afterwards and steadied out with 129 in the last run of the day.
“I knew I had to do something special in the third run or else I’d have to kiss it goodbye,” he told media afterwards.
But there were still moments of doubt, with just an hour to go, he said.
“In that last run, I was thinking, ‘I’m gonna go this whole day and I’m not going to get it. That’s what was going through my head - ‘I can’t believe I’m gonna go through all of this and I’m gonna let everyone down.’
“If it wasn’t for Koen and everyone else, my old man there and my young fella cheering me on, I probably would have given it in.”
Neil also revealed the pre-record drama which almost resulted in the abandonment of the dream.
“About three months ago, I ended up having a brain bleed. I was training for this and giving it everything, and I thought I was just getting fatigued from training.
“I was getting light-headed all the time and I thought I was just over-training, but I ended up passing out in my room and I was in hospital for a week.”
He decided he wasn’t going to do the record attempt, but changed his mind with a day to spare to meet an application deadline of 30 days before the chosen date.
The deadline is needed to give the records society time to arrange the judging panel for the event.
Neil is now planning another bid for April next year, targeting the nine-hour Merino ewes record of 530 shorn by now Central Otago-based North Island shearer Stacey Te Huia near Dubbo, N.S.W. in February 2015.
He is, however, yet to lodge the application.
Upcoming record bids
December 20, 2022: Reuben Alabaster, of Taihape, will, at Te Pa Station, near Raetihi, attempt the eight-hour strong wool lamb record of 744, shorn by Ivan Scott, of County Donegal, Ireland, at Opepe, near Taupo, on January 9, 2012.
December 22, 2022: Jack Fagan, of Te Kuiti, will, at Puketiti Station, near Piopio, also attempt the eight-hour strong wool lamb record currently held by Ivan Scott.
January 27, 2023: Amy Silcock, from Tiraumea, will, at Ross Na Clonagh, near Pahiatua, attempt the solo women’s eight-hour strong wool ewe record of 370, shorn by Marie Prebble, of England, at Trefrank Farm, Cornwall, England, on August 25, 2022.
February 4, 2023: Sacha Bond, from Woodville and living in the King Country, will, at Fairlight Station, Southland, attempt the women’s eigh-hour strong wool lamb record of 510, shorn by Pauline Bolay, of Canada, at Whitford Farms, Waikaretu, on December 7, 2019.
February 18, 2023: Aidan Copp, from Christchurch but based in Gunning, NSW, will, at Gala Estate, Cranbrook, Tasmania, attempt to regain the solo eight-hour crossbred lamb record of 527, shorn by Floyde Neil, of Boyup Brook, West Australia, but from Taumarunui, near Kojonup, W.A., on November 13, 2022.
February 25, 2023: Aidan Copp will, at Cranbrook, Tasmania, attempt the solo eight-hour merino ewe record of 497, shorn by Louis Brown, from Napier but based in Australia, near Kojonup, W.A., on April 27, 2019.
