English shearer Nick Greaves in the first run of his successful world solo eight hour strong wool lamb shearing record, in which he shore 764 on 3 August. Photo – agrimarketing.

ENGLISH shearer Nick Greaves has broken a record exclusive to New Zealand for the past 50 years, shearing 764 lambs to set a new world solo eight hour strong wool lamb mark.

Shearing on the family farm, Amerton Meadows, in Staffordshire, on Saturday, the 29 year-old broke the 754-lamb record set by Te Kuiti gun Jack Fagan at Puketiti Station, King Country, on December 22, 2022.

Shearing over four two-hour runs, Greaves started explosively, with 199 in the first two hours and following with runs of 195, 190 and 180, to be always well ahead of the Fagan’s tally.

Fagan set his record just two days after Taihape shearer Reuben Alabaster had set a mark of 752. Fagan shore consecutive run tallies of 191, 183, 190 and 190 in his big day out. Clock watchers were assessing Greaves’ prospects from the start, with targets of under 38.15 seconds a lamb, or 23.6 lambs a quarter hour, caught, shorn and despatched.

The Nick Greaves tally board. photo – agrimarketing.

The average in the opening run was 36.18 seconds a lamb and the average for the day was a tick under 37.7sec, with Greaves’ record meaning that all four current world solo eight hour and nine hour strong wool lamb records have now been set in England.

In 2022, during a two-stand big day out with Welsh shearer Llyr Jones, Greaves averaged 36.78 seconds a lamb setting a British nine-hour solo record on UK breeds, that because of the nature of the breeds have a lesser minimum wool weight requirement.

The latest record was overseen by a four-man panel of referees appointed by the World Sheep Shearing Records Society, convened by New Zealand official Ronny King, of Pahiatua. The other panelists were Martyn David, Andy Rankin, and Mark Fox, all from the UK.

A crucial point was reached on the eve of the attempt with a pre-record wool-weigh, when the wool from a sample shear of 20 of the target flock averaged 0.94kg of wool per lamb, safely over the minimum requirement of 0.9kg.

Greaves has shorn at least eight seasons in New Zealand for Hawke’s Bay contractor Brendan Mahony, and in January 2020, in a blow-out ahead of a UK record bid later that year, shore 763 lambs in nine hours at Tarawera Station, in the pumice country between Napier and Taupo, on what was regarded as some of the toughest lamb shearing in the World.

By the end of the third lamb that day he needed his first cutter change, when normally there would have been one every quarter hour. By the end of the day he’d used more than 200 cutters, and 42 combs.

Greaves told an English publication recently: “Lots from within shearing have inspired me, but someone who has believed in me from day one is Pete Chilcott from New Zealand, who always told me I was good enough for a record and never doubted me.

“Pete gave me confidence when I needed it most and got me through a tally day we did in 2020 in the build-up to the first record. He has taught me the lamb pattern I use today.”

In the competition arena, Greaves was fourth in the Southland All-Nations Senior Final, alongside the 2017 World championships in Invercargill, and in the Golden Shears Senior final in Masterton three weeks later.

He graduated to the open class, and his biggest successes came at the Royal Bath and West Show in June when he won the English National, the UK Golden Shears Open, and the Six Nations championship.

On Wednesday, Scottish shearer Una Cameron, the only woman to reach the Golden Shears Open top 30 in Masterton, will attempt the solo women’s nine hour strong wool ewe record of 458 set by New Zealand shearer Sacha Bond in Southland in February.

The attempt will take place at Trefranck Farm, St Clether, Cornwall, run by New Zealand farmer and shearer Matt Smith and wife Pippa, and where the UK assault on the solo strongwool records started with Smith’s nine-hour ewes mark of 731 on July 26, 2016.

World solo sheep shearing records as at 3 August, 2024

Eight hours

Strong wool ewes: 644, Rowland Smith, Trefranck Farm, Cornwall, England. July 24, 2017.

Strong wool lambs: 764, Nick Greaves, at Jack Fagan, Amerton Meadows, in Staffordshire, England, August 3, 2024.

Strong wool ewes (women): 465, Catherine Mullooly, Nukuhakari Station, King Country, NZ, January 7, 2024.

Strong wool lambs (women): 686, Megan Whitehead, Grant Bros Tin House, Gore, NZ, December 15, 2023.

Crossbred lambs: 605, Aidan Copp, Stockman Stud, Melton Mowbray, Tasmania, January 28, 2023.

Merino ewes: 500, Luke Vernon, Thornton Park Grazing, Hastings, West Australia, April 12, 2024.

Merino ewes (women): 358, Jeanine Kimm, Daleith, Cassilis, NSW, May 4, 2024.

Merino wethers: 373, Steve Mudford, Parkdale Merino Stud, Dubbo, NSW, Australia, September 8, 2018.

Merino lambs: 624, Ethan Harder, Woolakabin, Williams, West Australia, September 18, 2023.

Merino lambs (blades): 245, Sammuel Juba, Victoria West, South Africa, February 10, 2006.

Nine hours

Strong wool ewes: 731, Matthew Smith, Trefranck Farm Cornwall, England, July 26, 2016.

Strong wool lambs: 872, Stu Connor, Trefranck Farm, Cornwall, England, July 31, 2016.

Strong wool ewes (women): 458, Sacha Bond, Centrehill Station, Mossburn, NZ, February 9, 2024.

Strong wool lambs (women): 720, Sacha Bond, Centrehill Station, Mossburn, NZ, December 19, 2023.

Merino ewes: 540, Floyde Neil, Rockliffe Grazing, Kojonup, West Australia, April 22, 2023.

Merino wethers: 418, Grant Smith, Lake Coleridge, NZ, November 4, 1999.

Merino lambs: 664, Dwayne Black, Badgingarra, W.A., October 3, 2004.