East Coast shearer Catherine Mullooly (Ngā Rauru, Ngāti Kahungunu) has set a new shearing record.
Just after 3:40pm today at Nukuhakari Station near Te Kūiti, 34-year-old Mullooly passed the target of 386 ewes in a record set by Wairarapa shearer Amy Silcock just three days ago.
Mullooly continued shearing until the scheduled finish at 5:00pm with a final tally of 465 ewes and a new women’s world record for shearing ‘strong wool” ewes in eight hours - sheep that haven’t been shorn for eight months or more.
Her feat was celebrated by some 200 supporters that were packed into the station’s woolshed and a haka was performed at the end of her record setting run.
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CAPTION: Catherine Mullooly on the end run of her shearing record.
Mullooly, who farms at Matawai on the East Coast, was in her early 20s when she started competitive shearing in 2011, winning junior finals in Poverty Bay and Hawke’s Bay. By 2014, Mullooly was the first woman at the top of all grades in Shearing Sports New Zealand annual rankings.
A panel of four World Sheep Shearing Records Society judges were on-hand to ensure Mullooly met all the rules.