Te Kuiti shearer Kerri-Jo Te Huia is on target to smash a World shearing record and possibly become the first woman to shear 500 lambs in eight hours.
Shearing at Te Hape, east of Benneydale in the King Country, Te Huia shore 124 from the start at 7am to the morning smoko break at 9am, the first of four two-hour runs targeting the eight-hour lambshearing record of 470 established at nearby Moketenui by university graduate and Wairoa shearer Ingrid Baynes three years ago.
Te Huia is the "baby" of the five Te Huia off-spring, of whom brothers Hayden and Stacey have also had their names in the books of the World Shearing Records Society.
With wet weather closed-in around the woolshed, the record is being closely monitored by father, contractor and instructor Dean Te Huia, and four judges, who said the shearer was having no difficulty with the quality of her work and was comfortably meeting the standards required.
The average wool weight of 1.1kg per lamb was comfortably above the minimum allowable 0.9kg, the first-run quality rating of just over 9pts was comfortably under the maximum allowable 12pts, and the lambs were estimated to average about 32kg.
If she reaches the quietly-held goal of 500, she will have hauled about 16 tonnes of lambs onto the board during the day, and shorn them at an average of about 57.6 seconds each.
The second run is from 9.30-11.30am, the third from 12.30-2.30pm and the last from 3-5pm.
Yesterday, Irish shearer Ivan Scott averaged 38.45 seconds a lamb as he shore 749 in a men’s record attempt east of Taupo, but five were rejected by the judges for cuts as he was credited with an official new record of 744.
