Golden Shears

Month : March
Place : Masterton, New Zealand
Famous For : Arts Festival
Attractions : Sheep Shearing

The Golden Shears is a very unique event organized in Masterton, New Zealand. It's basically a sheep shearing competition held every year in the month of March. Tracing its advent in the year 1961, the Golden Shears championship is tagged as world's most prestigious sheep shearing event. Since its start, this sheep shearing event has now several levels of competition in shearing, wool handling and wool pressing.

Major Attractions

The Golden Shears Championship has played a key role in making sheep shearing competition - a world-wide sport. The premier title is the open championship in which the finalists must shear three types of sheep (fine wools, long wools and second shear). The shearer with the lowest score is the winner. The sheep are caught, thrown around by skilled hands and shorn in less than 60 seconds. The Golden Shears Championship is one of the most popular event in New Zealand. Proper regimented training programs and fitness regimes are organized for shearers like other professional sportsmen these days. It's a three day event covering different standards and ages from the Novice to the Open competitions and also featuring wool handling events, (spreading and sorting the fleece in one piece) wool pressing (packing the fleeces into bags) and the triathlon.