It's Samuels' night as the south gets first Golden Shears open title in 35 years
Southland shearer Leon Samuels became the first South Islander to win the Golden Shears Open shearing title in 35 years in a dramatic six-man final of 20 sheep each in Masterton tonight.
The winner of the New Zealand Shears Open final in Te Kuiti last April and thus a member of the New Zealand team at the World Championships in Scotland two months later, Samuels was second in the race – the only shearer to get within a sheep of miracle-man and Wairarapa shearer David Buick, who shore the final in 16m 16.064s, one of the quicker times in the 62 years of the event.
It was just two-and-a-half years after Buick was so badly injured in an accident on his Pongaroa farm the prognosis was that he might not even walk again.
Ultimately it was a Southland one-two, with 40-year-old Samuels, originally from Mangakino in the Central North Island but based in Southland or Australia for many years, and with only one previous Golden Shears Open final beforehand (third in 2020), winning by 1,253pts from runner-up and Riverton shearer Casey Bailey, in the final for the first time.
Losing some points in judging of the sheep in the pens, Buick was a further 1.26pts back in third place, followed in order by Southland veteran Nathan Stratford, in his 12th Golden Shears Open final, first-time championship finalist James Ruki, of Te Kuiti, and 2015 winner and Hawke's Bay-based Scotland international Gavin Mutch.
The last South Island shearer to win the Open was Edsel Forde in 1989, and it was Forde who was also last from the South Island to win the New Zealand Shears Open (in 1993) until Samuels won it 11 months ago.
Among those in the crowd of about 1000 was Alexandra great Brian 'Snow" Quinn, who won the Golden Shears Open title six times between 1965 and 1972.
The drama started before the shears started, with eight-times winner Rowland Smith out with injury, and Northland gun and prolific winner Toa Henderson was then eliminated in the quarterfinals.
The pair and Samuels were quoted from the outset by the TAB as the most likely to win, Samuels making it a fifth win for the season.
Stratford won a third PGG Wrightson National Shearing Circuit final, with just a 0.355pts margin to Samuels in second place, in another Southland quinella.
It was Stratford's 20th National circuit final, and on the night he also shore his 18th transtasman test, a New Zealand team record celebrated by teaming with Samuels and Marlborough shearer Angus Moore in an all-South Island win over Australians Daniel McIntyre, Nathan Meaney and Josh Bone.
But there were just 2.51pts in the test-match result, the closest margin in transtasman shearing tests since an Australian victory in Warrnambool, Vic, in 2013, and New Zealand's narrowest win since 2009.
The first test in the annual home-and-away series was in Euroa, Vic, in October 1974, and there have now been 71 tests, Australia winning 38 and New Zealand 33, there having been no tests from 1984 to 1997.
It was Stratford's last test, so for Samuels a proud moment to celebrate the win with his mentor.
Joel Henare, 32, from Gisborne and stepping back from some competition this season to focus on his children in Motueka, won the Golden Shears Open woolhandling title for a 10th time in a row, but with a narrow margin of just six points from Alexandra hopeful Pagan Rimene.
The North Island Open woolhandling circuit final, carrying a place in the 2024-2025 New Zealand transtasman series team, was won by Keryn Herbert, of Te Kuiti.
But, having represented Cook Islands at the 2023 World Championships in Scotland, the team position went to runner-up Ngaio Hanson, of Eketahuna, who despite also having represented New Zealand at the World Championships in Scotland is yet to win an Open woolhandling final.
The second woolhandling member of the transtasman team next season will come from the New Zealand Merino Shears final in Alexandra in October this year.