Stacey Te Huia during the second session of his shearing world record attempt at Te Hape Station near Bennydale, Waikato. With his father Dean Te Huia, left, and sister Kerri-Jo Te Huia.

Eight months of preparation will go on the line on January 5 when Stacey te Huia has his third attempt at breaking the world nine-hour strong wool ewe-shearing record.

The shearer from Te Kuiti in the King Country will have to shear more than 721 sheep to break the record set in 2007 by Hawke's Bay shearer Rodney Sutton.

The record is regarded as shearing's ultimate challenge and te Huia has been working full time as a shearer in Masterton and setting aside one hour of cross-fit training five days a week for the past eight months to physically prepare himself for the attempt.

His days spent shearing have been used to fine tune his technique in the event leadup. That meant not shearing too fast all year and slowly building up his speed.

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Te Huia said he felt "electric" and was in the best possible shape physically and mentally for the bid.

"I've cut back on training so all of that extra energy is going into the handpiece. I feel amazing at the moment."

He believed the record was within his capability as a shearer. His past attempts in 2013 and last January were called off during the day as the tallies fell behind the run-by-run targets. In the 2013 attempt Te Huia carried on to shear a personal best shed tally of 703.

In both attempts, te Huia said he was let down by sheep with wool that was not free combing because of wet weather during its growth. This caused the wool to clump together similar to a dreadlock, meaning the sheep took longer to shear because the wool had to be broken up.

"The wool sticks together and it doesn't fall off [the sheep]. You have to cut it off, it makes a hard job harder."

This time round, he is confident he will have good sheep to shear.

"The farmers have had their best season in 20 years."

The attempt is a massive challenge both physically and mentally, te Huia said.

"Most people can only see the physical part, but what is going on in my head is unbelievable and I think you have to work your way up to that too, you have to have mental prep."

That meant sticking to his shearing pattern and technique for each sheep, making sure each blow with the handpiece was correct.

"As long as I'm doing that, I should be sweet."

Te Huia will have to average more than 80 ewes an hour. Taking into account five seconds to catch the sheep and gear maintenance, te Huia would have to shear each sheep well under 40 seconds to break the record. A timekeeper will be monitoring his speed to inform te Huia if he is ahead or falling behind.

"You break it down per sheep instead of trying to work every 15 minutes."

Te Huia holds the world shearing records in the eight hour solo strong wool record of 603 shorn in 2010, the two-stand nine hour strong wool record of 1341 shorn with Waikaretu shearer and contractor Sam Welch in 2012 and in February this year he set a new record of shearing 530 merino sheep over nine hours, breaking the old record of 513 in Australia.

The attempt will take place at Mangarata-Taratahi Ag Training Centre, Te Ore Ore, just northeast of Masterton and te Huia said his bid had been well received by the community.

"There hasn't been a record attempt in Masterton in Wairarapa for something like 60 years and everyone's just buzzing, the whole community's right behind me."