Shearing: World champs to add to exciting line-up at show

World woolhandling champion Joel Henare (centre) winning at the Manawatu show on Saturday, heading now for the Central Hawke's Bay Show in Waipukurau.

World champion woolhandlers Joel Henare and Maryanne Baty have both confirmed they will add to a gathering of some of the country's top shearers and woolhandlers at the Central Hawke's Bay A&P Show which starts tomorrow.

Both confirmed to Hawke's Bay Today they will compete in the the show's CHB Shears on the last day of the show on Saturday, making the drive of more than three-and-a-half hours after attending their local Tairawahiti sports awards in Gisborne.

Henare is a finalist in the awards' Sportsman of the Year category and the two are finalists for Team of the Year for their triumphs at the World shearing and woolhandling championships in Invercargill in February.

Their appearance in Waipukurau, with Henare defending the open woolhandling title and seeking a sixth win in the event, sparks the possibility of a near-full but informal gathering of the machine shearing and woolhandling departments of the national team which competed in separate transtasman tests in Australia on October 28.

All three machine shearers in the team are now based in Hawke's Bay, with the recent arrival from Southland of Troy Pyper as he sets his sights on such goals as the Golden Shears Open and PGG Wrightson Wool National Circuit finals in Masterton in March.

Early this week he was a doubtful starter for Waipukurau as he finishes off the move before heading south for next week's national Corriedale championships in Christchurch.

Long-based in Hawke's Bay, however, are current national teammates John Kirkpatrick, the new world champion who has won the CHB Open shearing title 12 times since 1997, and 2014 world champion Rowland Smith, who is yet to win a CHB title, yet has had 22 consecutive open final wins in NZ since the start of February.

The other members of the New Zealand team are Canterbury blades shearers Tony Dobbs and Phil Oldfield, but there are no blade shearing competitions in the North Island.

Troy's arrival in the area comes after other recent arrivals in the region of former world champion Tom Wilson, who chaired the NZ Shearing Foundation which staged this year's world championships and who is now mainly retired from competition shearing, and last year's top-ranked senior shearer, Darren Alexander, from remote Taranaki locality Whangamomona.

The show starts tomorrow with dressage events and the Tux Yarding Challenge sheep dog trials.

Dominating the arena will be the horse and pony events, but other agri-sports include farm fencing, while the arena will on Saturday be the scene of show's annual terrier racing, a cart derby and a top team challenge.