Big Local Win In Golden Shears Speedshear

The top guns were blasted aside as Masterton shearer Chris Dickson won the Open Speedshear closing the first night of the 2025 Golden Shears in Masterton last night.

With former winners Jack Fagan, of Te Kuiti, and fellow Masterton shearer Paerata Abraham eliminated along the way - with a combined total of well over 100 speedshear wins between them - Dickson shore the first of the crutched and bellied sheep in the final in just 14.726 seconds.

Welsh shearer and regular workmate Llyr Jones did his best to snatch the $800 purse, but fell just short with a time of 14.91s, while Southland shearer Brett Roberts I 16.804s.

Fagan, who won the World’s richest speedshear prize of over $20,000 three weeks ago, was fourth, based on placings in the semi-finals.

It was just the fourth Open-class speedshear win for Dickson the other three having all been in 2023, but they were in strong company at Matiere, Halcombe and the Southern Field Days at Waimumu, near Gore.

But it wasn’t his target for the week, with his mind quickly turning to the Golden Shears Open championship and the Friday afternoon heats where more than 90 shearers six sheep each with the goal of reaching the top 30 for the quarterfinal shootout on Friday night.

Having ended his Senior career with three wins and a New Zealand Shears third placing in 2021, his dream of making the top 30 has been thwarted thus far by two years of Covid cancellations and being absent last year at a wedding.

Meanwhile Gore shearer Brodie Horrell, shearing first off in the Senior speedshear final did all that was needed to protect New Zealand’s honour in the face of challenges from two English shearers when he shore his final sheep in 20.79s just over half a second separated the three, with Jack Hutchinson, from County Durham, shearing 20.611s for second place, while Callum Bosley, from Cornwall, was third with a time of 20.635s.

The championships continued today also with the Senior shearing and Open and Senior woolhandling heats with the transtasman woolhandling test match the feature of the night programme.

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