Under 45 seconds a sheep all day – Rowland Smith keeps going

July 25, 2017

Under 45 seconds a sheep all day – Rowland Smith keeps going

Hawke’s Bay shearer Rowland Smith will go into the last run of his World record attempt in England needing just over 60 sheep an hour to break the existing mark set just five months ago in Southland.

But supporters at the bid at Trefranck Farm near St Clether in Cornwall say the 30-year-old Smith, already shearing at over 80 an hour and with 483 after six of the eight hours, is likely to meet a pre-record prediction by new New Zealand representative Jack Fagan by adding about 40 sheep to the record of 605 shorn by Invercargill shearer Leon Samuels near Gore in February.

Going in to the 30-minute afternoon tea break at 1.30am NZST, with three-quarters of the eight-hour strong wool ewes record bid record bid gone, Smith had shorn successive two-hour runs of 161, 161 and 161, averaging 44.72 seconds a sheep

It left just 123 needed to break the record in the last two hours to the finish at 4am NZST (5pm UK).

In his record Samuels shore successive two-hour runs of 149, 153, 151 and 152, averaging 47.6 seconds a sheep.

Fagan predicted in a radio interview a few hours before the record that Smith could shear over 640 of the romney and crossbred ewes that have been drawn from four farms in Cornwall and Devon.

They are mainly from Trefranck, farmed by Smith’s brother, Matthew, who on the same property a year ago shore a nine-hour record of 731, averaging 44.32 seconds a sheep.

Matthew Smith also once held the eight-hour record at 578, shorn in Hawke’s Bay in 2010.

Fagan said the sheep, carrying over 3kg of wool each, were particularly smooth combing with a tally of about 640 within reach of the two-metres-tall Rowland Smith.

The 2014 World champion and winner of multiple Golden Shears and New Zealand Open titles, is on target to shear as many as 80 more than the 562 he did when he and second brother Doug did a two-stand record of 1066 in Hawke’s Bay in 2011.

ENDS

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