Smith ready to roll the big guns at Golden Shears

Smith ready to roll the big guns at Golden Shears

New Zealand open shearing champion Rowland Smith hammered another batten to a picket-fence form-line as he won another important Golden Shears prelude at remote Apiti in northern Manawatu today(feb 25).

Coming just 24 hours after victory at the Taumarunui Jamboree Shears, it was the 25-year-old Hawke’s Bay-based Northlander’s Smith’s seventh Open competition win in four weeks.

For the fifth time in the seven shows, Te Kuiti veteran David Fagan had to settle for second place, while third was Hastings shearer Dion King, who beat Smith in two finals in the South Island seven days earlier.

Smith’s brother, Matt, was fourth, occasional competitor and Pongaroa farmer David Buick brushed off a few cobwebs with a promising fifth placing, and sixth was Whanganui’s Noel Gardiner, who shears for the Cook Islands at the World Championships during the Golden Shears starting on Wednesday.

Defending World Champion Can Ferguson did not compete at either Taumarunui or Apiti, while championships teammate John Kirkpatrick failed to qualify for the Apiti final.

The Open woolhandling final was won by Veronica Goss, or Ronnie as she’s known in the fraternity.

Well over 200 competitors were at Apiti, including 172 shearers and many from overseas, and there’s no rest with the final pre-shears events on tomorrow(Sunday) – shearing in a sports stadium in Pahiatua and woolhandling in a woolshed at Mikimiki, between Masterton and Eketahuna.
ENDS

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