Shear Genius

A record-breaking sheep-shearing career has taken Matt Smith from his home in New Zealand across the world before finally landing him in Cornwall, where he now lives with his wife, Pip, and their three children.

Words by Molly Haynes

(Above) Matt prepares to shear a sheep at Trefranck Farm in Cornwall. he wears his Ridgeline Men's Narvik Fleece in Ivy Green.  

It’s impossible to miss the pride in Matt and Pip Smith’s eyes as they show me a video of their three children running a ‘shearing competition’ from their playroom. Soft toy sheep, dogs and even the odd teddy bear all being sheared to cheers and squeals of laughter before being sent through the chute to the count-out pen, just as would happen in a real-life competition.

“The kids are all learning to shear real sheep,” says Matt, “But they wanted a practice set-up in the house, so I built them one. I want to make farming as enjoyable as possible for my kids. If they don’t want to farm, that’s fine – but I don’t want them to walk away because they hated it as children.”

Trefranck Farm – a sheep and beef farm – has been in Pip’s family since 1703. Pip and Matt took it over from her parents when they decided to settle down in the UK in 2014, before starting the “mind-boggling and expensive process” of getting Matt’s UK citizenship.

“The Life in the UK exam was pretty hard,” he says. “I had friends who’d lived their whole life in the UK who struggled to answer the questions on my test papers. But I’m now a dual national, and so are the kids.”

Matt grew up on a sheep and cattle farm in the north of New Zealand. “It was small by New Zealand standards with only 1,500 ewes and 200-300 bull calves a year. So, it was a given that I had to work away fencing, shearing and doing forestry work from quite a young age.”

He reminisces about the fact that he often wore Ridgeline clothing for hunting or farming back when it was only sold in Australasia. “I’ve worn the brand most of my life,” he says. “And now my kids are wearing it, too.”

Matt left school at 15 and by 16 was travelling around New Zealand shearing full time before landing in the UK for his first summer season at 17. “You can spend the year working your way around the world shearing sheep,” says Matt. “And during my twenties I did exactly that. I went to Montana and Wyoming in the United States, Estonia, Latvia and Finland and many European countries, often landing back in the UK for the summer. “I had a great time everywhere I went. The work was hard, but I was young, free and single, and happy to be on the go all the time. The people were welcoming and I learnt a lot,” he recalls.  

While shearing is predominantly done for the welfare of the sheep from a farming perspective, it’s also a big sport in New Zealand and Australia, and both Matt and his brother Rowland competed from a young age – with Matt describing good shearing as “poetry in motion”.

 “Rowland chose the serious competition route, but I wanted to travel, which put the competition shearing on the back burner. I did compete, but it wasn’t my main focus, and if you want to be at the top, it needs to be. That said, I also wanted to break records.”

 In 2010, at the age of 25, he achieved a world 8-hour strong wool record in New Zealand – shearing 578 sheep and beating the record by 18. “That record nearly killed me – about an hour after I finished, my body just started shutting down. It changed how I trained and prepared for my records going forward,” he says.

 Then six years later, in 2016, he broke the 9-hour strong wool World Record at his farm, shearing 731 ewes. “It was the first time a world shearing record attempt and success in this category had been held in the Northern Hemisphere,” he adds.

(Above) Matt wears his Ridgeline Men's Signature Singlet Top in Navy. 

His brother Rowland dominated the competitive shearing circuit, winning two machine shearing world titles. But in 2017, at Trefranck Farm, he broke the Solo 8-hour ewe World Record by shearing 644 sheep, averaging a sheep every 44.72 seconds.

“My brother and I have always been incredibly competitive –  but we’ve always appreciated each other’s strengths,” he says. “He’s helped me get better as a competition shearer, and I’ve helped him break world records.

Then in March 2026, Matt competed against Rowland in the Golden Shears World Shearing Championships, with Matt on the England team and Rowland with New Zealand. “We didn’t go in half-hearted and threw everything we had at it. But they were a very strong team, and New Zealand won the machine shearing team title by 0.277 points. Rowland retired that day, shifting his focus from competitions to his family and the farm he owns.”

These days, Matt admits there are still some records he’d like to break, but likes the balance he has working with British Wool, contracting and teaching shearing across Europe and Scandinavia, and running Trefranck Farm with Pip. With so many countries under his belt, I ask Matt where home really is. “It’s here with my family,” he says, “But there’s definitely a big part of my heart still in New Zealand.”

And as we leave him to an afternoon of moving the sheep, his New Zealand Huntaway dog at his heels, it’s clear to see that this Kiwi is more than at home in the wilds of Cornwall, too.