Te Huia zeroes in on shearing record in Australia

Kiwi gun Te Huia zeroes in on shearing record in Australia.

Te Kuiti shearer Stacey Te Huia is all-but assured of a new World merino shearing record in Australia, needing just 89 hour and threequarters in the last run of his gruelling slog in plus-30deg temperatures northwest of Dubbo, NSW.

The 36-year-old Bathurst-based Kiwi is tackling a 10-year-old record of 513 in nine hours, held by another Australia-based New Zealander, Dwayne Black.

After four of the day’s five shearing runs, under the scrutiny of a team of World Sheep Shearing Records Society judges and a crowd of several hundred at Parkdale Stud, Te Huia had shorn 425, which compared with 412 shorn by Black at the same stage of his record shorn in West Australia in April 2005.

Starting at 7am and needing an average of 57 an hour plus one to break the record, Te Huia shore 113 in the opening run of two hours.

Needing another 401o f the fine-wooled soft rolled skin Poll merinos in the rest of the day comprising four runs, of 1hr 45mins each, he’s since shorn runs of 103, 105 and 104.

Black’s runs were 112, 103, 98, 99 and 101.

Te Huia is already the holder of two crossbred strongwool ewes records set in New Zealand, but last month near Bennydale failed for the second time in a bid for the solo nine-hour strongwool record of 721.

The record attempt is due to end at 9pm New Zealand time.

ENDS

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