Amy Silcock during a successful four-stand record shear in 2020. Photo – SSNZ.

NEW Zealand shearer Amy Silcock has kicked off the first of three shearing record attempts being made on both sides of the Tasman Sea in the next two weeks.

The Wairarapa shearer’s rare lower North Island attempt on a world women’s solo strong wool ewe record started today with a first run tally of 87 and 84 in the second run. Check out the livestream on Shed Talk.

Amy, of Tiraumea, is attempting the record for eight hours at ‘Ross Na Clonagh’ at Pahiatua, in the Tararua District, chasing a target of 370 set by English shearer Marie Prebble at Trefrank Farm, Cornwall, on 25 August last year.

Amy Silcock starts on her first ewe today. Photo – supplied.

Amy will need to average about 77.6 seconds a ewe, caught shorn and dispatched, or about 46.4 ewes an hour. She shore 87 ewes in the first run today from 7-9am, and 84 from 9.30am to the one-hour lunch-break starting at 11.30am. This is well under Marie Prebble’s early run tallies. Prebble’s run tallies were 97, 93, 93, and 90.

The Silcock attempt got the all-clear late yesterday when a sample shear from the target flock averaged 4.09kg of wool per sheep, well above the required 3kg a sheep.

Silcock is already in the books of the World Sheep Shearing Records Society as part f a four-stand women’s record for nine hours near Turangi on January 23, 2020, when she shore 423 of the gang’s total of 2066.

The record attempt, starting at 7am and finishing at 5pm, comprises the standard eight-hour shearing day of four two-hour runs, with half-hour breaks for morning and afternoon tea and an hour for lunch.

Four judges have been appointed, convened by obligatory overseas representative Ralph Blue and South Island official Alistair Emslie, joined by North Island judges Neil Fagan and Ronnie King.

It is one of only three shearing record attempts in the Wellington-Wairarapa-Manawatu region in the last 20 years, one being a women’s nine-hour ewe record of 452 shorn by Kerri Jo Te Huia in the Tiraumea area on January 15, 2018. It is also one of three solo record attempts within the next nine days.

On Saturday, Australia-based South Island shearer Aidan Copp will make the first-ever record attempt in Tasmania, targeting the eight-hour crossbred lambs record that has been in place just over two months, since Floyd Neil, from Taumarunui, shore 527 near his base in West Australia on November 13.

On February 4, King Country-based mum-of-one Sacha Bond will attempt the women’s eight-hour strong wool lambs record at Fairlight Station, about 12km south of Kingston and the southern reach of Lake Wakatipu. The current record of 510 was set by Canadian shearer Pauline Bolay in the Waikato rural locality of Waikaretu on December 7, 2019.