A Waikato shearer’s attempt on a women’s World record is under way in West Australia today with the minimum wool weight being reached when a sample of the flock was shorn yesterday..

Alexia (“Lexi”) Phillips, from Waikato, is attempting the women’s solo eight-hours merino ewes record at Spring Valley Farm, Darkan, about 200km southeast of Perth.

The record of 358 was established by Jeanine Kimm in New South Wales on May 4 last year.

The attempt was given the go-ahead by a judging panel convened by South African official Piet Nel at a Friday-afternoon wool-weigh in the woolshed in which a sample shear from the flock averaged 4.35kg of wool per ewe, the World Sheep Shearing Records Society reported.

It's almost a kilogram over the minimum requirement of 3.4kg.

Starting at 7.30 local time (12.30pm New Zealand time), Phillips is shearing four two-hour runs, separated by half-hour breaks for morning and afternoon tea and an hour for lunch, needing to get onto an average of about 80 seconds a ewe to break the record, or almost 45 and hour..

Setting the record nine months ago, Australian shearer Kimm shore successive runs of 90, 86, 91 and 91.

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