Golden Shears Entries Pass 400 As Big Annual Festival Looms

Organisers of the 63rd Golden Shears are looking at ways of coping with big entries for some grades at the 2025 event in Masterton on February 27-March 1.

By early Wednesday afternoon, 413 entries had been received across the nine Golden Shears shearing and woolhandling titles titles – the five shearing championships and four woolhandling events.

The total was fast heading towards the 461 entries recorded last year in a big increase from the previous year.

Many also compete in the woolpressing events.

President Trish Stevens said maximums originally allowed for had already been reached in the Open and Novice shearing events, but entries are still being received.

The deadline for inclusion in the printed programme was Wednesday, and while the closing date for entries is this Sunday late entries will be accepted subject to places being or becoming available in the draws.

Entries are expected to increase even more next year when the programme extends to four days to include the 2026 World Championships.

Shearing Sports New Zealand chairman Sir David Fagan said entries across competitions throughout New Zealand had shown significant increases in entries in the last two years, in particular the bigger competitions, including some with more than 200 entries in a single day now considering the possibility of going to two days next year.

While sheep numbers have been in decline over many years, since the early 1980s when there were over 70 million nationwide to the current estimate of less than 24 million, the numbers shorn totalled 45-50 million taking into account second-shears and lambs.

“There are some good wages in shearing at the moment, and hopefully some recent trends in wool prices will continue, for the farmers,” he said.

The number of shearers around the country, and the influx of competitors and supporters from overseas, in both the woolshed and the competitions were having big impacts on small towns and communities throughout the country, he said.

A big week is in store for most of the competitors with the Golden Shears being the last three days of eight days of competition starting with shearing and woolhandling at Friday’s Taumarunui Shears and the Apiti YFC Sports Shears on Saturday.

The shearing-only Pahiatua Shears will be on Sunday, the Hawke’s Bay Autumn Shears shearing and woolhandling is at Waipukurau on Tuesday, and the Wairarapa Pre-Shears Woolhandling will be held on Wednesday at Riverside Farm, Mikimiki, north of Masterton.

The Kaikoura A and P Shears is also being held on Saturday, as is the Amuri A and P Show at Rotherham next weekend.

A big focus will be on the Open shearing and woolhandling finals, with the Golden Shears being the second round in the near year-long circuits to find New Zealand’s team for the World championships.,

Hawke’s Bay shearer Rowland Smith, who hasn’t been beaten in the Golden Shears Open shearing final since his first two years in the top six in 2011 and 2012, but was a late withdrawal last year because of injury faces some big challenges in going for a ninth win in the event in attempting wrestle the title back from Southland gun Leon Samuels, who last year became the first from the South Island to win the 20-sheep showdown final since 1989.

With wins at Wairoa and Taihape in his first two starts back in January, and the biggest challenges to his 2025 hopes should could from Samuels, Northland shearer Toa Henderson, the No 1-ranked Open shearer nationwide last summer, and Wairarapa farmer David Buick, who came back from near-crippling injuries in a 2021 farm accident to finish third in last year’s final and win the New Zealand Shears Open title in Te Kuiti four weeks later.

Henderson, who is yet to reach a Golden Shears Open final, has won the Otago Shears and Southern Shears Open titles in the last fortnight (February 8 and February 15), Buick, seven times a Golden Shear Open finalist but yet to win the title, has had four wins this season, two of them in national title events on longwool and lambs in Southland in January.

Southland has other hopes in Nathan Stratford, whose 88 wins in 28 seasons of Open shearing don’t include the Golden Shears title, despite shearing in the final 12 times, surprise 2024 runner-up Casey Bailey, and Corey Palmer, who on February 15 had his first Open win, in the South Island Shearer of the year final.

Among other North Island hopes are Hawke’s Bay-based Scotsman and 2012 winner Gavin Mutch, who first shore in the final in 2006, four-times winner and Hawke’s Bay shearer John Kirkpatrick, who ended the 12-year winning sequence of David Fagan in 2002, Oamaru farmer Justin Meikle, back after more than 15 years off back mainly to follow his son around the competitions, and Otorohanga shearer Digger Balme, who first shore in the final in 1991, each among the winners this season..

The woohandling final will see Joel Henare, from Gisborne, chasing an 11th title, with significant challenges from Alexandra woolhandlers Pagan Rimene and Foonie Waihape, who have each had two wins this season, while other hopes include 2024 Senior champion Vinniye Phillps, of Taumarunui, who had won three finals in her first season in the Open grade.

Others who have won Open finals this summer are Taiwha Nelson of Alexandra, Jasmin Tipoki, of Napier, Ngaira Puha, of Kimbolton, Keryn Herbert, of Te Kuiti, Amy Ferguson, of Alexandra, and Ngaio Hanson, of Eketahuna.

Cushla Abraham, of Masterton also looms as a top prospect.

In other grades there will be interest in the performance of Laura Bradley, from Papatawa, in the Tararua District, who, after seven Senior wins up to February 15, looms as a prospect to be the first woman to win a Golden Shears title in any of the top three shearing grades.

The Junior shearing has a looming North-South clash featuring most-prolific North Island winner Jodiesha Kirkpatrick, of Gisborne, and Oamaru’s Tye Meikle, who has had wins from Gore in the south to Whangarei in the north.

At least nine countries are represented among at least 40 competitors from overseas, some also among hopes of claiming winning ribbons in the lower grades.

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