Nicki Guttler shearing her way to the milestone Forbes open win. Image – Isabella Thompson.

NEW South Wales shearer Nicki Guttler has overcome injury and tragedy to become Australia’s first woman to win an open shearing event, with an inspirational victory at the Forbes Show last weekend.

And she backed up the milestone machine shearing open win, by also winning the blade shearing event at Forbes.

Days after her win against three other open male shearers at Forbes’ Ben Hall Shears event Nicki said she is still coming to terms with what it meant.

“But it is something pretty special.”

The 32 year-old third generation shearer has been shearing professionally and competitively for ten years, and is in her third season as an open shearer, but has been battling bulging discs in her lower back that have stopped her working for long periods.

“It’s been a battle, I could only even walk or put my shoes on and even sitting was uncomfortable for a long time.”

Her recovery involved a lot of rest to let her body recover, but Nicki said her personal trainer Jasmine Owens at Howlong also helped her get back on her feet and moving. She had six months off work last year when her back went the first time, and after returning to work she had to stop again last Christmas. After another four month break this year she eased back into work, shearing one then two and three days a week.

“Jasmine has been a huge part of getting me back to even shearing a sheep.

“I went to at the start of the year when I could hardly walk or do any movements in the gym, but she helped keep me accountable to keep showing up at the gym and finding ways to strengthen the parts of my body that we could, and continue to build that strength to have the confidence to get back into the shed.

“I’m only really back to fulltime shearing now.”

In December 2024, Nicki set a new women’s world record shearing 450 Merino lambs in eight hours at the Parkdale Merino Stud property at Dubbo, New South Wales. Since then, her recovery from the back injury has involved lots of slow cautious shearing and a change to her record-breaking pattern to focus hard on quality.

Despite being 25-30 percent down on her record-breaking strength for the strong composite ewes at Forbes, Nicki said she focused on quality rather speed. She was third to finish her 12 sheep, but won the event by under a point with the lowest board and pen penalty points among the shearers+ in the final.

“But I’m quite tall and I’ve got big shoulders too and I’m still taller than some of the other open men and heavier than some, so even going by physical stature, it is still disappointing that people judge me by what my sex is and thinking I’m not capable of doing it.”

Nicki finished first with 70.6 penalty points in the open final, ahead of Andrew Parkes on 71.56 points, James Russell in third place (71.8) and John Burraston fourth (76.23).

‘It’s going to be today for nana’

Nicki was competing at Forbes just a week ago after the loss of her beloved grandmother, nana Ruth Farrall, who was admired for strength and resilience in living independently on her farm into her late eighties.

“I guess in the open final it was all happening so quickly, I was shearing well and just thought if there’s any day I’m going to win, it’s going to be today for nana.”

Nicki said it is great for the younger female shearers to see that no matter the challenges or the situation, “it doesn’t matter if it is a completely male dominated industry there is no reason why they can’t achieve what they want to achieve, whatever that may be.”

“There are so many elements to shearing than just brute strength and pace.”

Nicki has been on the phone non-stop for the two days this week doing numerous media interviews along with fielding many messages from friends and family, but said she hadn’t set out to achieve the milestone.

“I just compete in Sports Shears because I love the competition, I love the people.”

“I think I was aware that no Australian woman has done this but it was not a goal I specifically wanted to achieve, though I thought one day I could do it (win an open), but that was just me personally wanting to win achieve it.”

Nicki said it was pretty cool to set the Merino lamb record in 2024, but she noted that shearing record attempts are still categorised according to the sex of the shearer(s) while in competition shearing the two sexes compete equally.

“So to really put that statement in history (the first Australian woman to win an open) is really special.”

Nicki said there were female shearers in every other shearing grade event at Forbes – three in the novice event, two in the intermediate and one in the senior event.

Tasmanian shearer Emily Spencer said Nicki’s win at Forbes was inspirational.

“A lot of the girls don’t have the confidence to compete against the boys … and seeing her accomplish that, she is an inspiration, she really is.”

As a keen competition shearer, Emily said she is rising into the open ranks in competition shearing and is daunted by the competitiveness of the male shearers.

“But seeing that (Nicki’s win), I’m thinking it is possible for a girl to be able to do that.”

Apart from continuing to shear around Walbundrie for contractor Ben Schilg, Nicki’s next goal is to make the top 12 for the NSW state final and then reach the top three for the open state side to compete in the Australian championships at Warrnambool next month.

“Now that I’m on a roll, I may as well go and cross a few things off.”

The Forbes open finalists, from left, Nicki Guttler, 1st; Andrew Parkes, 2nd; James Russell, 3rd, and; John Burraston, 4th.