The previous record of 721 had stood for more than nine years, since being shorn by Hawke’s Bay gun Rodney Sutton in a King Country woolshed in January 2007.
Smith, 32, grew-up around Ruawai in Northland and had also been based in Hawke’s Bay before settling in England with wife Pippa, whom he married in 2014 at St Clether Parish Church, near where the record took place at Trefranck Farm, Cornwall.
He had been a regular shearing in the Northern Hemisphere since the age of 17 and, having shorn an eight-hour record of 578 in Hawke’s Bay in 2010 long set his sights on a record attempt in the United Kingdom where he settled on a flock of Romney and crossbreds which would meet the requirements of the World Sheep Shearing Records Society.
The all-clear for the record was given only in the standard day-before wool-weigh in which 10 sample sheep shorn before the three judges, from New Zealand, Australia and Wales, met the standard of an average of more than 3kg of wool a ewe.
Shearing started at 5am and finished at 5pm, a standard woolshed day including hour-long breaks for breakfast and lunch, and a half-hour each for morning and afternoon tea.
He wasn’t immediately available to comment as he was overwhelmed by the handshakes and embraces, but he had been preparing a long time, having initially planned to attempt the record a year ago.
Pippa Smith said her husband had been on a strict diet since returning from shearing in New Zealand in mid-January.
“No coffee, no beer,” she said. “He had a low-carb diet just because his body functions better. Heaps of fish, chicken and venison, and veges. He had plenty of fluids on board too.”
Conditions in the area were ideal, cloudy with temperatures up to about 19C, but still enough to test the physical endurance.
