Wool champion dedicates wins to killed boss

MEDIA RELEASE
On behalf of Shearing Sports New Zealand

October 23, 2011
Wool champion dedicates wins to killed boss

Leading woolhandler Keryn Herbert has some big goals for the new season, but on Friday all the motivation was emotional as she retained the Great Raihania Shears Open title and dedicated the triumph to her “boss” who was killed in a farm accident last week.

“This is for him,” she told a packed shearing pavilion at the Hawke’s Bay Show in Hastings, before hitting the road fro the 300km journey home to Te Kuiti where farming identity Peter Johnstone’s funeral was held the next day.

Herbert had seven-week-old son Rikihana along for the ride while husband Corey stayed home to repair the fences at Puketutu, where the couple live and work for property owner Mr Johnstone who died when his tractor rolled last Tuesday.

She was at home at the time of the tragedy, to which she was alerted by a passing motorist before calling the emergency services.

Mr Johnstone, 70, was one of the King Country’s biggest landowners, his blocks also including shearing records venue Moketenui, near Bennydale, and each year he also supplied the stock for the Running of the Sheep through Te Kuiti’s main street in conjunction with the New Zealand Shears.

It was the first win of the season for the 32-year-old Herbert, who has blended nine months of pregnancy and the arrival of her second child with her determination to qualify for a second World Championships.

Now embroiled in a selection series to find two woolhandlers to represent New Zealand at the Championships during the Golden Shears in Masterton in March, she’s desperately keen to help New Zealand retain the teams title she and Taihape schoolteacher Sheree Alabaster son in Wales last year.

But she’s even more determined to make up for her failure to make the individual final in Wales, in which defending champion Alabaster was beaten by Welsh woolhandler Bronwen Tango.

Herbert put in a string of 12 post-Christmas finals performances last season to head the national Open woolhandling rankings for the first time, although she failed to qualify for the finals at either the Golden Shears or the New Zealand championships.

Her win on Friday, when she drove from Te Kuiti to Hastings in the morning, was by 14 points from runner-up, New Zealand transtasman series representative and Kimbolton farmer Veronica (Ronnie) Goss, and came in her third final in a fortnight, after placings at the NZ Spring Shears in Waimate and at the Poverty Bay Show in Gisborne. Goss beat 2006 New Zealand transtasman series teammate Tia Potae, of Milton, by just two-tenths of a point, and fourth was 2011 Golden Shears third place-getter Waimiere Peneha, of Masterton.

Napier shearer John Kirkpatrick, a World teams champion in 2008 and reigning Golden Shears Open shearing champion, regained the glamour Great Raihania Shears Open shearing title, with a winning margin of just 0.75pts over defending champion and fellow Hawke’s Bay gun Dion King.

Both will next month in Christchurch be among at least 18 starters in an eight-show series which ends in Gore in February to find two machine shearing representatives for the World Championships.

Coveting the No 1 stand on Friday, Kirkpatrick won on speed, shearing 20 of the bigger sheep seen in a Hawke’s Bay final in 17min 17sec, and beating next-man-off King by just over half-a-minute. Hawke’s Bay-based Northlander Matthew Smith was just five seconds further adrift.

Remarkably, all three were more than two sheep ahead of fourth finalist and King Country icon David Fagan, who in the fortnight beforehand had won the New Zealand Spring Shears title in his last competition before turning 50, and was the fastest shearer in the Poverty Bay final, his first after hitting the milestone.

Poverty Bay shearers cleaned-up in the other shearing events on Friday with the Senior title going to Wi Poutu Ngarangione, of Gisborne, the Intermediate title to Henare Niania, also of Gisborne, and Matawai farmers’ daughter Catherine Mullooly, winning the Junior final by a wide margin, just as she had done in her maiden win in Gisborne the previous weekend.

Maryanne Baty, of Gisborne, completed a double of early eastern shows by adding the Senior woolhandling title to a triumph in Gisborne, and a second placing in the previous week’s event in Waimate, while Tyneil Smith, of Waipawa, scored her first victory in the Great Raihania Shears Junior woolhandling final.

Results of the Great Raihania Shears at the Hawke’s Bay Show on Friday October 21:

Shearing:

Open final (20 sheep): John Kirkpatrick (Napier) 17min 17sec, 67.05pts, 1; Dion King (Napier) 17min 51sec, 67.8pts, 2; Matthew Smith (Ruawai) 17min 56sec, 71.85pts, 3; David Fagan (Te Kuiti) 20.13sec, 76.95pts, 4.

Senior final (9 sheep): Wi Poutu Ngarangione (Gisborne) 10min 16sec, 46.68pts, 1; Shelford Wilcox (Gisborne) 10min 26sec, 48.74pts, 2; Brett Roberts (Mataura) 11min 53sec, 52.65pts, 3; Tysson Hema (Waipukurau) 10min 45sec, 54.14pts, 4.

Intermediate final (4 sheep): Henare Niania (Gisborne) 6min 29sec, 35.45pts, 1; Paki Waerea (Bridge Pa) 6min 18sec, 41.15pts, Michael Rolston (Levin) 7min 14sec, 43.7pts, 3; Renata Pene (Waipawa) 6min 58sec, 46.4pts, 4.

Junior final (3 sheep): Catherine Mullooly (Matawai) 7min 39sec, 39.61pts, 1; Cory Aramoana (Waipawa) 7min 29sec, 54.45pts, 2; Anaru Wakefield (Porangahau) 7min, 56pts, 3; Paraki Puna (Napier) 8min 5sec, 60.58pts, 4.

Woolhandling:

Open final: Keryn Herbert (Te Awamutu) 199pts, 1; Veronica (Ronnie) Goss (Kimbolton) 213pts, 2; Tia Potae (Milton) 213.2pts, 3; Waimiere Peneha (Masterton) 263.6pts, 4.

Senior final: Maryanne Baty (Gisborne) 89.6pts, 1; Kim Sowry (Pahiatua) 102.8pts, 2; Kyle Wihongi (Hastings) 113.588pts, 3; Rangi Barakat (Waipawa) 128.412pts, 4.

Junior final: Tyneil Smith (Waipawa) 134pts, 1; Erena Smith (Ruatoria) 154pts, 2; Sade Elers (Napier) 161pts, 3; Stevie Mason Smallman (Taihape) 163pts, 4.

Pairs: Erana Smith (Waipawa) and Monica Potae (Tokomaru Bay) 95pts, 1; Stevie Mason Smallman (Taihape) and Tia Potae (Milton), 125pts, 2; Tina Elers (Napier) and Maureen Smith (Gisborne) 131pts, 3; Kyle Wihongi (Hastings) and Dallas Mihaere (Dannevirke), 136pts, 4.

ENDS

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