Thursday, 27 October 2022 15:55

Buzz of new Southern Series to lift shearing sports

Written by  Staff Reporters
Angus Moore, winner of last year’s New Zealand Corriedale Championships at the New Zealand Agricultural Show. Angus Moore, winner of last year’s New Zealand Corriedale Championships at the New Zealand Agricultural Show.

Competitive shearing is about to be boosted with the launch of a new competition, The Southern Series.

The series starts on Friday November 11th at the New Zealand Agricultural Show in Christchurch.

The Southern Series would “take the extreme sport of sheep-shearing to a global audience,” increasing prize-money and helping to promote wool as a sustainable, natural fibre, event manager Hugh de Lacy Senior says.

“Not only will competitive shearers benefit financially from hugely increased recognition as supreme athletes, but the global exposure will highlight the relevance of wool in the battle against climate change, by reducing or eliminating the immense damage done to the environment by oilderived fibres,” de Lacy says.

Over the next two years, The Southern Series would be expanded first into a tour of New Zealand competitions, and then into a global tour taking in shows in Europe, North America and Australasia, beamed out live on television to potentially millions of viewers world-wide.

“It takes a good ten years of year-round work for a shearer to rise from learner to the point where they’re competitive at the highest level – and there are no short-cuts," de Lacy says.

“The physical exertion in shearing has been measured at the equivalent of running at 7km an hour, and shearers do it for eight or nine hours a day for as many days in a row as there are dry sheep to shear.”

All this effort is condensed into 20 thrilling minutes of a shearing competition final where the race was on to minimise the stress to the sheep by relieving it of its fleece in the shortest possible time with the least discomfort for the sheep.

No other sport demands such extreme training, and shearers are usually in their early-tomid thirties before they begin making it into the six-man finals.

Top shearers were relishing the opportunity to test their skills on The Southern Series platform, de Lacy says.

Angus Moore, winner of last year’s New Zealand Corriedale Championships at the New Zealand Agricultural Show, says shearing and woolhandling in general was becoming more professional in all sorts of ways.

The best of them worked around New Zealand and around the world so an event like The Southern Series was another way of recognising a job well done.

The series would help to make it more financially viable to compete at the highest level.

Even a Senior-grade competitive shearer could be making between $700- $1,000 a day in commercial shearing “and they take a day off to go to shearing show and it can hit them in the pocket, especially as only one guy can come first and that’s where the prize money is at”.

Still, Moore loves the thrill of performing.

“Getting that firstplaced ribbon is pretty cool,” he says.

Scotsman Gavin Mutch, winner of the recent Waimate Spring Shears, is equally passionate. “Competitions, that’s my hobby, my sport and I just compete because I love it,” he says.

He’s looking forward to shearing Corriedales at the New Zealand Agricultural Show.

“I’m from Scotland so it’s coarse wool that I grew up with, so for me to shear fine wool sheep is out of my comfort zone a little bit.”

More like this

Scaled-back show meets targets

Organisers of the Christchurch A&P show say they are happy with this year’s event despite a rushed turnaround that left agricultural industry support thin on the ground.

Protecting brassica seeds by keeping pests at bay

Forage brassica crops provide an excellent source of energy and protein for grazing livestock at critical times of the year when the quantity and quality of pasture on offer is limiting livestock production.

The show is on!

It was bringing in a new Canterbury A&P Association (CAPA) show board, more in tune with the CAPA general committee, that has ensured that Christchurch will have a show this year, says CAPA general committee president Bryce Murray.

Showcasing why farming matters

A renewed emphasis on how farm produce makes it from the paddock to the consumer will be a feature of the 2023 New Zealand Agricultural Show.

Featured

Farmers urged not to be complacent about TB

New Zealand's TBfree programme has made great progress in reducing the impact of the disease on livestock herds, but there’s still a long way to go, according to Beef+Lamb NZ.

Editorial: Making wool great again

OPINION: Otago farmer and NZ First MP Mark Patterson is humble about the role that he’s played in mandating government agencies to use wool wherever possible in new and refurbished buildings.

National

Machinery & Products

Farmer-led group buys Novag

While the name and technology remain unchanged and new machines will continue to carry the Novag name, all the assets,…

Buhler name to go

Shareholders at a special meeting have approved a proposed deal that will see Buhler Industries, the publicly traded Versatile and…

» Latest Print Issues Online

The Hound

Make it 1000%!

OPINION: The appendage swinging contest between the US and China continues, with China hitting back with a new rate of…

Own goal

OPINION: The irony of President Trump’s tariff obsession is that the worst damage may be done to his own people.

» Connect with Rural News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter