After two years of covid-induced cancellations, the iconic Golden Shears annual shearing and woolhandling championship kicked off in Masterton on Thursday for the 61st time.
The three-day shearing, woolhandling and pressing open usually brings in around 70,000 viewers from around the world to the live broadcast, as well as a stadium full of fans and supporters.
Golden Shears president Sam Saunders is positive that the event will be one to remember, and it gives him “much pleasure to welcome everyone to the 61st Golden Shears”.
“This year is about getting up and running again, remembering all the little things as well as the large ones,” he said.
“With all that has happened in the last two years we have learnt some lessons. But we carry on, as the sheep still need to be shorn.”
Scoring systems in shearing, woolhandling and pressing competitions are based on combinations of time, job and quality penalties. The lowest score wins.
Some of the high profile competitors include Hawke’s Bay shearer and defending men’s open champion Rowland Smith, fellow Hawkes Bay shearer John Kirkpatrick and Scottish shearer Gavin Mutch, plus many others.
Another shearer to watch is Northland shearer Toa Henderson, who although having never competed in a Golden Shears final, scored his third win in three weeks over defending champion Rowland Smith.
The 32-year-old has now won seven finals in the 2022-2023 season beating Smith by half a point in the Atia Sports Shears Open Final on Waitangi Day, then winning the Otago Shears Final five days later, with Smith coming in at fourth.
With an action packed first day of the event coming to a close, an unsuspecting 10-year-old shearer stole the show competing in the novice heats – just as four generations of family members before him have.
Wairua Edmonds, of Masterton continued a family tradition that has spanned back almost all 61 years of the competition since it was first held in 1961. He was competing alongside 51 other novice shearers, and among the more than 370 competitors expected to take part in the three day shearing event.
