South Island Shearing

South Island Shearing

Newly-acclaimed Master Shearer Tony Coster won the Northern A and P Show Shears open final for a fourth year in a row at Rangiora on Saturday.

Coster, who has won almost 60 finals in more than 20 years of open-class shearing, was accorded Master Shearer status at the annual meeting of Shearing Spots New Zealand in August.

Most of his wins have been in Canterbury, but he has also won the country’s top mixed-breeds events – the PGG WrightsonNational final in Masterton three times (2009, 2010, and 2011) and the New Zealand Shears Circuit final once (2012).

He was one of three 2013 Rangiora winners to win again at the show on Saturday, with Fairlie-based Masterton shearer Ethan Pankhurst successfully defending the senior title, and Fernside shearer Hugh De Lacy adding the intermediate title to the junior title he won 12 months ago.

The junior title was won by Kelly Macdonald, of Lake Hawea, winning by a huge margin of 31 points from runner-up Amy Silcock, of Waikari.

Coster, Pankhurst and De Lacy had also won a week earlier at the Ellesmere Show at Leeston, while Pankhurst had also won at the NZ Spring Shears in Waimate on October 11.

The favourite to win the four-man Open final on Saturday, Coster shore his 15 sheep in 17min 44sec, 16 seconds ahead of runner-up Eli Cummings, of Pleasant Pt. Coster also had a board-judging mark of less than half that of any of the other finalists, but Cummings had clearly the better pen points and was able to close the gap to just 0.66pts.

ENDS

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