The group established the four-stand women’s shearing record of 2066 lambs in nine hours on Thursday in the central North Island.
Shearing Sports chairman and former multiple World, Golden Shears and New Zealand champion Sir David Fagan said there are some great things happening for shearing and this takes it to another level.
The shearers shore the standard nine-hour day of five runs. Kicking off at 5am, the first run was two hours, the remaining four were 1hr 45min each finishing up at 5pm.
Gore shearer Megan Whitehead headed the individual tallies shore an incredible 608 at about 53.3 seconds a lamb caught, shorn and dispatched.
Milestones were also passed by Marlborough contractor and university graduate Sarah Higgins who shore 528, Piopio-based shearer Natalya Rangiawha, from Raglan, who shore 507, and Amy Silcock, from Tiraumea in Wairarapa, who finished with 423.
The youngest, 23-year-old Whitehead increased her personal best by close to 50% in just two months.
“She looks now a serious challenger to the solo women’s record of 648 set by Emily Welch, of Waikaretu, in 2007,” Fagan said.
Higgins, 27, the most well-known for becoming in 2015 the first person to win Golden Shears titles in both wool handling and shearing, added the novice shearing title to the junior wool handling title she won two years earlier.
Rangiawha, also 27, was fifth in the 2018 New Zealand junior championship final in Te Kuiti and Silcock, 32, has been shearing in competitions for several seasons but was shearing Merinos in Australia when she got the call to replace injured original hopeful and Scottish shearer Helga Sinclair about three months ago.
The group finished the day with 416 in the final run, an average of 59.43 a quarter-hour.
Chief referee Martyn David, from Wales, said despite the huge effort the quality got better and better all day.
Organiser Jill Angus Burney, who in 1989 shore a solo nine-hour record of 541, was overwhelmed by the support for a record that cost about $15,000 to stage.
Dozens of volunteers came from throughout the country to help prepare the Romney lambs and to work throughout the day or support the women to get them over the line.
CP Wool was the major sponsor.
