Kiwi shearers on top in UK tour opener

MEDIA RELEASE

On behalf of Shearing Sports New Zealand

June 25, 2012

Kiwi shearers on top in UK tour opener

The New Zealand shearing team of John Kirkpatrick and Nathan Stratford have opened their 2012 UK tour with winning form at the Royal Highland Show.

The pair beat the Scottish team of Hamish Mitchell and Callum Shaw in the first test of the tour, while four-times Golden Shears champion Kirkpatrick also won the final of the Royal Highland Open Championship, with Mitchell second and Stratford third.

The events were shorn earlier today (NZT) and were not the only successes for New Zealand shearers in front of the sizeable crowd at the show at Ingliston, Ediburgh.

Te Kuiti prodigy Jack Fagan added the Royal Highland Open senior title to a victory in the South of Scotland senior final at Dumfries a fortnight ago, while Golden Shears 50th anniversary novice champion David Gordon, of Masterton, was third in the Intermediate final and led an invitation team to victory in a ground-breaking Intermediate-class international against Scotland and Wales.

Kirkpatrick, of Napier, and Stratford, from Invercargill, claimed their places in the New Zealand team with wins in the New Zealand Open Championship and New Zealand Circuit finals respectively at Te Kuiti in April. Their next test is at the Lochearnhead Shears, also in Scotland, next weekend, an d the pair compete at least once a week through to the end of the tour at the Corwen Shears in Wales at the end of next month.

Other New Zealanders at the shows are competing as individuals while working in the UK.
ENDS

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