MEDIA RELEASE

On behalf of Shearing Sports New Zealand

November 16, 2012

Win win situation as coast shearer comes home – from Oz

West Coast shearer Jason Win scored possibly his biggest victory in years of Open class competition at the 150th Canterbury Show today doing what last year’s winner did – making a rush trip from Australia.

From Ikamatua, the 35-year-old father-of-two looked in surprisingly good control at the New Zealand Corriedale Championships as he mastered a six-man final in the climax of a 48-hour trip from his new home in Coleraine, West Victoria.

Among the field was three-times former winner and reigning Golden Shears and New Zealand Open champion John Kirkpatrick, but Win cleaned-out the Napier gun – on time and quality.

Win shore his 10 coarse-wooled sheep in 12min 40.05sec, first to finish and beating Kirkpatrick by nine seconds. Ultimately more than 2.5pts separated winner and runner-up.

It was his first win in New Zealand since early last year, one of three minor show wins in the 2010-2011 season, but he had won a “local show” at Coleraine last month, without any New Zealand opposition.

Friends commonly congratulated him today, saying: “About time you won one.”
Third was Invercargill shearer Nathan Stratford, having otherwise finished runner-up four times in a row since 2008.

Missing from the event was 2011 surprise winner and Australian shearer Shannon Warnest, who did not return to defend the title, while among those who failed to make today’s final was 13-times former winner David Fagan, of Te Kuiti..

The victory was rich reward for Win, for whom the trip’s purpose was mainly to secure more points in the heats, which also constituted the third round of the PGG Wrightson National Circuit, for which he qualified for the final last season.

He’s qualified only 11th of 18 for today’s semi-finals, securing nowhere near the place points for which hoped, and he’d also been “last-man-in” qualifying for the final.

The Senior final today was won by Cory Palmer, of Dipton, the Intermediate by Phoenix Hawkins, of Rakaia, and the Blades final by Brian Thompson, the Christchurch shearer who also led New Zealand to a blades shearing test win over Australia.

ENDS