CANCELLING the Great NZ Muster will not affect Te Kūiti’s status as the “Shearing Capital of The World” because the two are not related, NZ Shearing Championships president Sir David Fagan says.
“Te Kūiti was made shearing capital of the world way before the muster started. It was nothing to do with the muster.
“The muster was started quite late in the piece. It was nothing to do with the shearing capital of the world,” David said.
“Why is it Shearing Capital of the World’? It’s because of that event, and all the top shearers that have come out of that Te Kūiti area.
“It’s nothing to do with the muster at all, and it’s quite offensive to put that in there I think” – he said referring to the headline on last week’s story.
“The history of the event is why it’s shearing capital of the world. And all the top shearers that have won events all around the world, not because of some sheep run down the street – which I might add we still want to have, but the council cancelled that.”
Having stalls down the street during the shearing championships pre-dated the running of the sheep, David said.
“There was a muster before (2004) when they had stalls and that down the street.
“Then the idea came up ‘well let’s run the sheep down the street while the muster’s on.’
“They still could have had a muster without the sheep run, which would have been good for the town. It’s a shame it was cancelled, really,” David said.
“It’s been planned for a couple of years to still have the muster as far as I’m aware, and now they are talking about having different activities and having a rural sports day with different events and stalls and everything. It all just seemed to get too hard.”
Four days before the council announcement last Friday that the muster would be cancelled, David was unaware the council was considering cancelling the event.
“We are all busy enough running the shearing championships, but it is a shame for the community that they have done that.
“We’ve been running that event since 1985, long before council ever thought about having street stalls, and we will keep running that event. It’s just a shame for the wider community that they never carried it on really.
“You know there was a lot of money that came into town that weekend.”
