Smith even hotter as TAB takes record shears punt

April 5, 2013

Smith even hotter as TAB takes record shears punt

The TAB has accepted its biggest ever shearing sports punt with a $10,000 wager on Hastings shearer Rowland Smith to win his second New Zealand Open title in Te Kuiti today.

The national betting agency’s shearing bookmaker, Kieran McAnulty, confirmed the bet had been made on the already-warm event favourite and new Golden Shears champion ahead of today’s heats.

The bet sparked a sharp shortening of the odds on the 26-year-old, from $1.80 when the book opened to $1.50 today, odds which not even Te Kuiti legend David Fagan could command at the height of a 32-year Open class career in which he’s still consistent enough to be a cautiously-watched third-favourite.

The heats were being shorn this morning with more than 60 entries, cutting the field to 24 for the quarterfinals early on Saturday afternoon.

Top qualifier for tor the quarterfinals is second favourite and defending champion John Kirkpatrick, of Napier, with Fagan and Smith both safe at second and third.

The quarterfinals will be shorn tomorrow afternoon (Saturday), and the top 12 survivors contest semi-finals soon afterwards, leading to the six-man final over 20 sheep each about 9pm, the last event of the Shearing Sports New Zealand season of more than 60 competitions throughout the country since the start of last October.

Meanwhile, Smith will represent his Northland allegiances in the final of a new inter-provincial contest at the championships which feature 11 different shearing and woolhandling events.

It’s a State of Origin-styled contest, with shearers representing areas according to rugby union boundaries, and Smith, who grew-up in Ruawai, heads the six qualifiers with teammate Neville Osborne, of Dargaville.

Similarly, Hawke’s Bay-based Kirkpatrick represents the East Coast with nephew Ian Kirkpatrick, of Gisborne, the pair qualifying for tomorrow’s final in second place, followed by Dion King and Phil Wedd (Hawke’s Bay), Peter Jackson and Dean Ball (King Country), Nuki Gordon and David Buick (Wairarapa) and Paerata Abraham and Adam Brausch (Wairarapa).

Open quarterfinalists: John Kirkpatrick (Napier), David Fagan (Te Kuiti), Rowland Smith (Hastings), David Buick (Pongaroa), Peter Jackson (Palmerston North), Gavin Mutch (Whangamomona and Scotland), Nathan Stratford (Invercargill), Mark Grainger (Te Kuiti), Dean Ball (Te Kuiti), James Fagan (Te Kuiti), Alan MacDonald (Matiere), Tony Coster (Rakaia), Cassino (Deano) Smith (Gisborne), Dion King (Hastings), Tipene Te Whata (Tautoro), Digger Balme (Te Kuiti), Bart Hadfield (Wairoa), Adam Brausch (Dannevirke), Adam Berry (England), Ian Kirkpatrick (Gisborne),

Tom Wilson (Darfield and Scotland), Paerata Abraham (Dannevirke), Phil Wedd (Napier), Bevan Guy (Kaeo).

ENDS

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