TAIHAPE's Luke Mullins was among a trio of shearers who this week smashed a world record by more than 260 sheep.
At Waitara Station, north-west of Napier, on Tuesday, Mullins, Eru Weeds from Southland and James Mack from the Waikato sheared 1611 strongwool ewes in eight hours - beating the previous record by 264 sheep.
The previous three-stand record was 1347, established 13 months ago by Shelford Wilcox, Errol Chrystal and Kalin Chrystal.
While it was seen as the most targetable of all the World Sheep Shearing Records Society categories, the combination of the heat and pumice in the longer wool were expected to severely challenge the trio.
The conditions and the coarse wool meant cutter changes were needed about every 10 minutes - far more frequently than in most other conditions and probably costing at least another 20 sheep in time - but the challengers overcame the odds and were on top from the time the first of the four two-hour runs started at 6am.
Of the three shearers, 35-year-old Mullins had the highest total of the day, with 554 sheep over eight hours. This is 70 more than his previous best.
It was the first record attempt for Mullins, who had dreamed of doing a record since the age of 15 when he saw three shearers break a lamb shearing record.
It was the second record for Weeds and Mack, who helped set a four-stand lamb shearing record in Southland in 2013.
The temperature hit just under 30 in the woolshed at over 550 metres altitude, where it was the third record set using the ewes of farmer and property owner Lloyd Holloway.
It was also the third world shearing record broken in the central North Island within eight days.