Mac, left, with AWI shearing trainer Brian Sullivan and Will Ogden, one of Mac’s mates.
Mac Hooppell doesn’t just want to be the son of a gun.
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The determined teenager really wants to be the gun son of a gun.
A gun in his own right, maybe even with his own shearing team.
His father, Jon, has been a shearer, and in partnership with his mother, Leesa, runs a shearing contracting business.
But Mac, 16, has already struck out on his own and signed up with Deniliquin/Echuca contractor Hamish Strawnhorn, working sheds as far afield as Boort, Serpentine, Pyramid Hill and Elmore.
And he has plans to go much further north when he gets his licence in February — chasing big flocks and big runs where he can hone his already considerable skills.
“I reckon I started shearing when I was about 10, and I have been doing it ever since,” Mac says.
“I was at Moama Anglican Grammar School, but was also attending the AWI shearing schools.”
That meant two live-in courses at Paraway Pastoral’s Cooinbil Station at Coleambally in NSW, with 14 other enthusiastic young shearers, where the trainers were Brian Sullivan, Janice Beshmann and Mike Pora.
Four years ago, Australian Wool Innovation introduced a project to equip learner shearers with an ‘AWI Learner Shearer Toolbox’ containing a handpiece and other shearing gear, subject to the shearer passing certain criteria. The AWI Toolbox provides an extra incentive for budding shearers to build their skills and stay in the industry.
Mac is already proving he’s a future big noise on the board with multiple wins on the Victorian show shearing circuit.
Mac Hooppell, on the extreme left, with his broad ribbon after another competition success – this time at Euroa.
Late last month he was a winner at Euroa Show and is working hard to work his way through the grades after racking up the necessary three wins as a novice and starting to make his mark as an intermediate, often against shearers older than him.
“You get judged on your speed and the cleanness of your sheep and collect points at each show,” Mac says.
“You normally shear three or four at each competition and I started in novice class 12 months ago and am now shearing at events as big as the Australian Wool and Sheep Show at Bendigo.
“I need to win four events to go up to senior, so I will keep trying for that.”
Mac says in a shed at work he can do around 200 crossbreds a day, and maybe 150 big Merino ewes.
Right now he says the biggest mob he deals with is a place with about 20,000 sheep, but they have a couple of shearings each season.
“The only thing holding me back is turning 17 and getting my licence — until then I am lucky that one of the guys in our crew is happy to pick me up and take me with him,” Mac says.
“I really enjoy shearing, you get to meet a lot of new people, go to a lot of different places.
“And once I can take myself north I will get to meet and see a lot more.”
And probably win a fair few more competitions along the way.
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