Showing the boys how it’s done
A documentary crew has enlisted the internet’s help to fund their project about New Zealand women in the shearing shed.
Over 320 competitors are entered in the 22 events, but much attention will be on legendary Te Kuiti shearer David Fagan, who is retiring at the end of the season after 37 years of competitive shearing in which he has won 640 finals worldwide.
Fagan, 53, is one of more than 70 competitors in the event, in which he has reached the final 26 times and posted 16 wins. His first final was in 1984, placing as runner-up to brother John. He won the event for the first time in 1986.
He has won at least 25 other events at the Golden Shears, the last in 2009. The win have included nine in the National Circuit final, for which he is also the favourite.
The championships start with lower grade shearing and wool-handling heats preliminary stages in three wool-pressing competitions, the pace stepping-up with the Open shearing and wool-handling heats on Friday morning.
Friday night will see a Trans-Tasman test, with the big finals and a shearing test between New Zealand and Australia held on Saturday night.
A special feature will be a reunion of about 16 of the Open shearing championship finals from the first two decades of the Golden Shears. Among them is 81-year-old Southlander Ian "Snow" Harrison, the lone survivor of the first Open final in 1961.
Another feature will be a wool-sculpting competition held in conjunction with a Speedshear on Thursday night.
Large numbers of overseas competitors will be at the shears, from as far afield as Scotland and southern Chile.
Organisers say that the Golden Shears in Masterton is regarded as the World's major shearing and wool-handling festival, spurning a Golden Shears World Championships, first held in England in 1977.
