He was there when "it started" and David Fagan came down - 30th anniversary win CHB win for Johnny Kirkpatrick.
Good numbers of entries in the lower classes continued to be a feature of competitions when the Central Hawke’s Bay A and P Show Shears were held in Waipukurau on Saturday.
Of 128 competitors across the nine classes of shearing and woolhandling, there were 87 shearers, half of them in the Novice and Junior grades, which had 18 and 25 respectively. Both were won by local rookies, with the Novice final won by Bugs Butler and the Junior by George Peacock, the latter claiming his second win of the season having stepped-up from the Novice grade during last season to finish fourth in the New Zealand Shears Junior final in Te Kuiti in April.
As winners went on Saturday, they were in good company, with the Open final won by Hawke’s Bay shearer John Kirkpatrick, who has won more than 200 Open finals, including the 2017 World title and four Golden Shears Open finals, since he first appeared at the Waipukurau competition in 1994, in his first season in the open grade, with already two Open wins behind him, and finishing third behind shearing legendary shearer David Fagan and fellow King Country gun Digger Balme.
Bouncing back from shoulder surgery, Kirkpatrick was claiming his third win in five finals in six competitions in successive weeks at the start of the 2024-2035 season. He started at the New Zealand Merino Championships in Alexandra, and then finished fifth at Waimate’s New Zealand Spring Shearing Championships, before winning at the Gisborne Shears, finishing second at Hawke’s Bay’s Great Raihania Shears in Hastings, and winning again at the Wairarapa Spring Shears. It was his 14th win in the CHB Open final, which first he won in 1997, and came by less than four tenths of a point from David Buick, who was also second at Gisborne and Wairarapa, and who won the NZ Shears Open final seven months ago, on the comeback trail after suffering life-threatening and near-crippling injuries in a farm accident three years ago.
Southern Hawke’s Bay shearer Laura Bradley claimed latest bragging rights in a growing Senior grade growing rivalry with Wairoa shearer Bruce Grace, but it was close, with Grace first to finish, shearing the North Island’s first 10-sheep Senior final of the season in 12min 40.22sec, almost half-a-minute clear, with Bradley’s better quality giving her the red ribbon by just 0.046pts. It was the sixth win of her Senior career.
King Country farmer Keryn Herbert, claimed her third CHB Shears Open woolhandling title, and her 58th win in an Open-class career now in its 22nd season, with 2022-2023 New Zealand transtasman series team member Cushla Abraham, of Masterton, in second place, and Marika Braddick, of Eketahuna, third, after fourth placings at Gisborne and Hastings.
The Intermediate shearing final was won by Napier shearer Kaivah Cooper, his second win in the grade after being the No 1-ranked Junior nationwide last season, the Senior woolhandling final provided a first win of the season for defending CHB Senior champion Tatijana Keefe, from Raupunga.
The Junior final was a first for local Kaylah Ferguson, daughter of 2010 Golden Shears and World shearing champion Cam Ferguson, and the Novice woolhandling was won by Caitlin Murphy, of Pongaroa.
For more photos of the day check out www.facebook.com/centralhawkesbayshears
