It was hard not to like Robert ‘Rabbit’ McLaren.

“You’d only have to meet him for two minutes and he’d have you bloody laughing anyways,” good friend Norm Harraway said.

The Hinds-born man was good at making friends, picking up new skills - whatever he put his mind to, Harraway said.

“Rabbit’s one of those annoying bastards that was good at anything he did.”

Harraway recalls it didn’t take long for McLaren to shear his first 300 sheep when he first picked up the clippers.

He and Harraway met while participating at shearing competitions in Canterbury.

“I can't exactly remember it when; to be fair, some of the memories earlier on were a bit cloudy with alcohol.”

McLaren didn’t stick at shearing for long - he dabbled in a number of odd jobs.

“Between his sheep, the [portable sawmill] and chainsaw work, he did firewood for a while… he was a pretty busy fella.”

A jack of all trades, but it was his career as a shearing competition judge that earned him a space in the hearts of the national shearing community.

“He started judging through a friend of ours who was involved in shearing sports - John Hough.

He spent two decades judging competitions around the world and locally, helping officiate 20 world records in his time.

“He was well known as a fair judge,” Harraway said, “and none of it was paid, it’s all voluntary work.”

“Him and I were mates, but if I was shearing, he’d pick up the mistakes that I made.

“He didn’t care who you were, he just judged.”

Harraway and McLaren spent a decent amount of time on the road together because of the competitions.

“He was the examiner in our area, so he organised all the judges for the different shows in region three, sort of Mid [and] South Canterbury.”

John Hough - the man who got Rabbit judging - met him as a young bloke in 1982.

“I used to be with the New Zealand Wool Board, and he’d come on a shearing course.

“I was one of the teachers there, Rabbit would have been about 18, 19.”

He said McLaren’s body might have aged, but not his spirit.

“He always had a twinkle in his eye.

“He had a lot of tricks up his sleeve, tricks and jokes, he was always joking.”

He agreed that McLaren got good at whatever he put his mind to.

“I remember we were shearing at a place once and not long after that, big winds blew a lot of trees over around Canterbury.

“He was cutting trees that we were down for the digger to come along and shift.

“And he was well ahead of the digger; he stopped at one point and came over for a bit to see us.”

He was good at his work, but also at making friends, Hough said.

“It didn’t matter whether you were a kid or an old pensioner.”

He recalls at one of the Canterbury A & P shows watching Rabbit perform an animal magic trick for the kids.

“He had this chook, he tucked its head under his wing, and it went to sleep.”

“The kids were just gobsmacked.

“That’s what he was like, he just got on with everyone.”

His close circle was made up of farmers and shearers, like Harraway, Hough and Shear for Life founder Rocky Bull.

And they’re a tight-knit bunch - To celebrate Hough’s retirement from show judging, the crew hit the road to get for a boys trip around the regional shearing competitions.

“We started off at Alexander, and we went to the Golden Shears up in Masterton.”

Hough said McLaren was “ a real character.”

Some might wonder where he got the nickname ‘Rabbit’ from - The Guardian was told that was a detail to keep off the books.

“It’s pretty hard to talk about Rabbit because a lot of things that you know about him you wouldn’t print.

“I'd say, everyone would remember him as being Rabbit: always smiling, friendly, always had a joke.

“He kept us going, really.”

Around 1500 people turned out to his funeral , “the biggest funeral that I’ve ever been to, and at my age, you go to a few,” Hough said.

Robert James "Rabbit" McLaren

BORN: December 4, 1962

DIED: February 1, 2025, aged 62.

Son of Patricia and Ken McLaren of Ashburton. Loving partner of Kathy McLaren, dad to Nicole, Jessica, and Emily. A loving grandad. A major loss for New Zealand’s shearing community.

by Anisha Satya