MEDIA RELEASE

On behalf of Shearing Sports New Zealand

April 4, 2013

Smith’s a hotty as shears climax looms

New Golden Shears champion Rowland Smith has become possibly the hottest favourite in more than 10 years of TAB betting on shearing sports as the season climaxes with the 29 New Zealand championships which started in Te Kuiti today.

In odds released by TAB shearing bookmaker Kieran McAnulty, the 26-year-old Hastings based Northland shearer who won his first Golden Shears Open title on May 2, and who won the New Zealand Open two years ago, is quoted at $1.80.

Three-times winner and defending champion John Kirkpatrick, of Napier, is second-favourite at $3.50, among the longest odds of his Golden Shears and New Zealand Championships career since his first Golden Shears Open win in 2002.

Championships home-town hero David Fagan and winner of the NZ Open 17 times from 1986 to 2010, is third-favourite paying $6, having won show titles around the North Island during the summer, but having suffered a quarter-final elimination at the Golden Shears.

Golden Shears runner-up Dion King, of Hastings, is the only other shearer with single-figure odss at $8, followed by the other finalists from the Masterton event, Cam Ferguson, of Waipawa, at $12, and, sharing the sixth line, World champion Gavin Mutch, of Whangamomo, and South Island hope and Invercargill shearer, Nathan Stratford.

The three-day championships started today with lower grade shearing heats and qualifying rounds in all woolhandling events.

About 200 competitors are in Te Kuiti, with more than 60 entered in the Open shearing heats which will be held tomorrow(Friday), starting a four-stage elimination process leading to a 20-sheep final on Saturday night.

Prizes worth more than $20,000 are on offer to the Open winner, who, along with the winner of the New Zealand Circuit final, also shorn during the championships, will represent New Zealand in the UK later in the year.

Other events in Te Kuiti include an inter-island shearing and woolhandling test, and a new State of Origin-styled provincial shearing event, in which competitors will represent rugby union territories in which they grew-up.

It’s drawn teams from at least 9 of the union areas, not surprisingly none from Auckland.

Having grown-up north of Gisborne, Kirkpatrick teams with nephew Ian Kirkpatrick to represent Poverty Bay, and Smith teams with Neville Osborne, of Dargaville, to represent Northland.

Fagan, however, sticks with King Country, partnering son Jack Fagan, who in Te Kuiti will be shearing his last Senior competition before joining his father in the Open class next season.
ENDS