I'm ready, says jockey-sized shearing record hopeful

On behalf of Shearing Sports New Zealand

November 24, 2010

I'm ready, says jockey-sized shearing record hopeful

Diminutive Napier shearer Steve Stoney says he's ready for his crack at shearing's ultimate record goal on Friday despite the enormity of a task of shearing almost 100 lambs every 60 minutes for nine hours, and being both the eldest and the smallest to ever give it a go.

Stoney is 41 and stands just 1.6 metres tall, but is determined to break the record of 866 lambs set in January 2007 by fellow Hawke's Bay gun Dion King, who at the time was the reigning Golden Shears Open and PGG Wrightson National series champion and aged just 31.

The record bid will take place on a flock of open-face romdale-cross lambs at Kahuranaki Station, south of Havelock North via Waimarama and Kahuranaki roads.

It starts at 5am on Friday, with the traditional five runs of the nine-hour work day in which shearers work two hours to 7am, take an hour-long break for breakfast and then work four runs of 1hr 45mins each, with 30 minutes for the morning and afternoon smoke breaks and an hour off for lunch. The bid is scheduled to end at 5pm.

Shearing Sports New Zealand chairman John Fagan, who in 1980 was the first to break the 800-lamb barrier and who will be at Friday's record in Hawke's Bay as one of four judges appointed by the World Sheep Shearing Records Society, says that while the records are normally broken in just the last few minutes, Stoney will have to be on record pace from the start.

He has thus been practicing in quarter-hour splits, knowing he will have to maintain an average exceeding 24 lambs every 15 minutes, and will know the odds by the end of the first two hours when he compares his tally with the two-hour run record of 196 which kicked off King's big day at Motekenui Station near Te Kuiti almost four years ago. King also shore a record 1hr 45min run of 170 after breakfast and kept ahead of the numbers with 168 in the next two runs and 164 to the bell, to comfortably beat the previous record of 851 set by Justin Bell near Rotorua in December 2004.

Stoney's confidence stems from a blow-out 12 months ago in which he shore 850, just to see if he was in the right sort of shape to challenge for the record. He's also been there before, having in 1997 shorn in a record-breaking three-man gang, in addition to monitoring the stopwatch at King's side in an eight-hour record in 2002.

Wife Kat says he's "hungrier" than ever, and, working for Napier contractor Farrell Chrystal is not distracted by the pressures of running his own business as he was 13 years ago.

Most clearly marking the changing times, however, is the fact that with the country's sheep numbers a mere shadow of those in the past and with seasonal issues disrupting the plans, he can number the full days shearing he's had this season on the fingers of one hand.

"In 1967, I would have been thankful to have two or three days off ," he said.

The scene for the record bid will be set on Thursday afternoon when Stoney shears 20 lambs for the judges, the wool required to be a minimum 18kg, an average of 900g per lamb, for the record to go ahead.

The record had originally been tentatively set for a fortnight earlier, but was postponed so that the wool weight could be met.

The attempt is the first of two this summer so far notified to the society, with Te Kuiti shearer Stacey Te Huia confirming last week he will challenge Hawke's Bay-based Far North shearer Matthew Smith's eight-hour strong wool ewes record of 578. Te Huia, who has been in the books as a two-stand record holder since 1999, fell five short of the solo record in January, just four days after Smith's successful attempt.

Two more record bids are expected in January, with Smith's brothers, Doug and Rowland, planning a bid for the two-stand eight-hour ewes record, and Golden Shears Open and World champion Cam Ferguson targeting the solo eight-hour lambs record of 736.

Progress throught the record attempts can be followed on the website www.shearingsports.co.nz

CAPTION: Napier shearer Steve Stoney practicising for an attempt on the World nine-hour strong wool lambs shearing record to be made at Kahuranaki Station, east of Hastings, on Friday (November 26).

ENDS

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