By CATHY ARTRIDGE
THESE are the competition results of a very successful event enjoyed by competitors, officials and an appreciative crowd under the iconic Moreton Bay fig trees. Competing in both sheep shearing and wool-handling, throughout the day 35 shearers and 15 wool-handlers, handled over 300 of Hayes/Tarcombe fine wool merino sheep and fleeces, in addition, 60 cross-bred lambs were shorn in the final local shearing championship.
Competitors hailed from Queensland, WA, Tasmania, NSW and Victoria.
AWI sponsored Novice Shear was won by Annie Hall of Taralga, NSW who was very pleased as it was her first ever show competition, she took home the First Prize ribbon and is awarded the James Naughton Memorial Trophy.
2nd & 3rd places went to Will Ogden & Darby Edwards-Parsons.
Euroa’s Cody Betts, 1st place Woolbrokers/AWI Intermediate Shear on 89.10pts, Jasmine Morris, 2nd on 89.70pts; Jack McArdle 3rd, Nick Russell 4th, Jake Ischovils 5th, Chris Kendall 6th.
Nathan Van Elk of Benalla won the Willpower Senior Shear, Ben Mintern, James Spencer, Will Ball, Shelley King & John Smith picking up places & ribbons over 16 competitors.
Champion shearer Nathan Doyle, Shepparton, took out the Beiyuan Open Shear well ahead of the field with 67.85pts over next place Jonathan Smith on 81pts, Jake Sullivan, Keagan Betts, Kaleb Artridge & Shelley King heading up a further field of 16.
An outstanding win in the Novice Wool-handlers by Lauren Stead of Locksley, runners-up Riana Monika (Birchip), Chantelle Doherty (Benalla) & Lexie McKenzie (Rochester) competed in good spirits and enjoying the support of the crowd.
Fox & Lillie sponsored Open Wool-handler competition was hotly contested with 12 competitors – Jayne Griffin (Raywood) taking first place, Ash Boyce (Deni) went into the finals with the best heat score but had to be satisfied with 2nd place, 3rd to Alice McKay, 4th Laura Erickson, 5th Abbie Curnow & 6th Tiana Ward.
Local competitors were given a second opportunity to compete in Wool-handling and Shearing.
Local Wool-handler Final saw first place go to Deanna Artridge (Ruffy), 2nd Cloe Rogerson (Barwite) and 3rd Lauren Stead (Locksley), final scores within a tight 10pts of each other.
Local Shear Championship – Stan Artridge Memorial: Another close finish with top 3 heat scorers also taking our 1st, 2nd & 3rd with close scores, Jake Sullivan on 51.00pts, Nathan Van Elk on 51.35, Nathan Doyle 53.7, Will Ball 4th, Keagan Betts 5th, Kaleb Artridge 6th.
Having shorn finewool Merino wethers in earlier events, this last event of the day (Local Shear Finals) was held with nice sized cross-bred lambs.
Shearers changed their gear to suit the soft skin and less dense wool of the lambs.
The board was swept clean so as not to contaminate the different wool types.
Pen keepers brought in the lambs – 10 in each pen.
Time-keepers ready with stopwatches in each hand, board judges ready with clipboard and clickers, with shearers at the ready Mike called the countdown and 6 local shearers spent the next 10 to 14 minutes taking off the wool which was expertly handled by volunteer rousies, skirted, rolled, swept & baled.
As with all the events, shearers were given a score calculated on their time/sheep and points deducted for "errors" as per the rules of Sports Shear Australia.
With a good crowd enjoying a full day of shearing and wool-handling, the atmosphere was electric as Mike Pora commentated the action, explaining the Judges’ difficult task and encouraging crowd support as shearers pulled out of gear & wool-handlers slapped their broom on the board to indicate their task was done.