Shearing: Sacha Bond on target to beat 9-hour world record

Sacha Bond, seen here in the shearing shed preparing for her record-breaking day of 601 lambs in eight hours in Southland in February,

King Country’s Sacha Bond has made a flying start to a day in which she could become the first woman to shear more than 700 sheep in nine hours.

Bond is aiming to break the world nine-hour strong wool lamb record of 661 and is shearing at Centre Hill near Mossburn in Northern Southland.

Bond started at 5am and was timed on one lamb in the first hour at 44.45 seconds.

When breakfast was taken at 7am she’d had one rejected by the judges, to record an official tally of 162 in two hours – a pace which would push her close to 730 by the end of the day.

Her average of 81 an hour is five up on the 75 an hour of her now-beaten eight-hour record of 601 shorn in February.

Shearing resumed at 8am with the first of four 1hr 45min runs seeing out the rest of the day.

This follows the standard nine-hour woolshed working day historically prominent in the days when the shearing gangs stayed out on remote stations until the contract was completed.

Conditions were cool in the pre-breakfast run but high cloud and temperatures up to 27 deg are forecast for the remainder of the day.

The lambs are expected to clip over 1kg of wool a head, the minimum required average of 0.9kg having been met in a Monday afternoon wool weigh in which 20.06kg was shorn from a sample of 20 lambs.

In the back of Bond’s mind will have been that record holder and Southland gun Megan Whitehead, who shore her 661 two years ago, has for the last four days also held claim to the biggest tally shorn by any women in any record bid – for a tally shorn in just eight hours.

On Friday Whitehead claimed the women’s solo eight-hour lamb record with a tally of 686 lambs, 85 on top of the 601 Bond had shorn in claiming the eight-hour record 10 months ago.