Young mum shears one lamb every 45 seconds to set new world record

A Kiwi shearer who learnt her craft in Australia has powered her way to a new world record for the most lambs shorn by a woman in a nine-hour work day.

Thirty-year-old Sacha Bond shore 720 lambs to beat fellow Kiwi Megan Whitehead’s 2021 record of 661 lambs.

That equates to one lamb shorn every 45 seconds.

She completed the record at Centre Hill Station on New Zealand’s South Island, cheered on by a large crowd of supporters.

The extraordinary feat concretes the young mother’s status as a god of the industry in New Zealand, where gun shearers are revered like nowhere else.

Intensive training regime

Ms Bond has been shearing for a decade, but in the past six year she’s hit the gym to boost her fitness and increase her shearing tallies.

Her intensive training regime became even more demanding in the lead-up to the record attempt.

“I’ve got a trainer from the UK who sends me a monthly module of exercises, so I do three days of strength training, a couple of days of conditioning and mobility, and then some cardio, so all up seven-days-a-week, including shearing the majority of that time as well,” she said.

“I’m never one to count my chickens, but I just trusted the process of all my training I’d done to better my skills as a shearer, and it all depended on how everything went on the day.”

Shearing technique and physical fitness aside, Ms Bond said she needed to be in the right headspace to stay on track to break the world record.

“Your mental state is about 40 per cent of how your day goes; if you’re not in the right frame of mind and you can’t stay focused, you can’t shear and your body gets sore and everything starts falling apart,” she said.

Shearers revered in New Zealand

While shearers sometimes get a bad rap in Australia, in New Zealand they are adored and revered like gods, especially those at the top of their game, like Ms Bond.

“Our industry here in New Zealand is quite a lot different to Australia,” Ms Bond said.

“If you’ve sort of made a name for yourself and shown you have got what it takes, you do get quite well respected.

“In Australia for many years it was just the ‘drunken shearers’ I suppose, but things are changing over there and I think it’s going to move in the same way we get treated here in New Zealand.”

Baptism of fire in Australia

Ms Bond picked up the art of shearing in Australia, learning on merinos, which can be notoriously difficult and slow to shear because of their wrinkly skin, unlike the feisty but smooth-skinned crossbreeds she shore for the record.

“It’s completely different, you have to run your blows differently because merinos have a lot of loose skin you have to manoeuvre your handpiece around,” Ms Bond said.

“But it is good to be an all-round shearer and know how to get around every type of sheep.” 

Only getting better

At just 30 years old, the mother of a two-year-old has time to get even better, but she has some young guns hot on her tail.

“They say for a male, you sort of peak around 30 to 35, I’m not sure if that’s the same for a female, but I feel pretty good at the moment,” she said.

“This is probably the fittest I’ve ever been and my mindset is pretty dead on.

“But don’t get me wrong, there are a lot younger women out there, the likes of Megan Whitehead and Hannah McColl, they’ve got their heads switched on and they’re amazing athletes.”

A week ago, the duo shore 1,283 lambs in an eight-hour day to smash the women’s eight hour two-stand strong wool lamb record, while Ms Whitehouse’s tally of 686 was a world record in the solo division — beating the record set by Ms Bond in February.

The record tallies in the women’s division have now risen so high, they’re not far off the men’s records.

“We are creeping up there, it’s great to see, it’s not likely we will ever [match] the males because we don’t have the same strength, but we are getting up there and we’re showing them what we’re made of,” Ms Bond said.

‘Head down, arse up’

There’s no rest for Ms Bond after her world record.

She’ll have a couple of days off and then get straight back into the gym to prepare for her next record attempt, the nine-hour strong wool ewe record.

“I don’t count my chickens before they hatch, so I’m just going to be head down and arse up and just doing what I need to get done before this next attempt,” she said.

“I love the shearing industry, there are so many good people in this industry, it can take you to so many places in the world and you can have the best experiences, plus you can make amazing money.

“I love it and I advise anyone, if they’re interested in trying this as a career, it’s a good way to go.”