PURE GRASS BEEF
The ‘Riggit’ Galloway cattle are a well documented archaic strain of Galloway, easily identifiable by the white stripe, running down their spine. (The term ‘riggit’ is a Scottish vernacular reference to this stripe, and seems to be Scandanavian in origin ) The main body colour can be black, blue/black, red, brown or dun. The white colouration may include a widening of the stripe to cover much of the back, particularly on the hind quarters, white under the keel of the animal, and white flashes amongst the solid colour. Other breed points would largely correspond with more common Galloway types, including their being naturally polled, of medium frame, with beef confirmation, a thick ‘dual’ coat, and ability to thrive on poor pasture .
photos by Alan S Bias
The colouration seems to part of the phased change between a white animal with black points (as in the various park breeds, in this instance the White Galloway), and solid coloured animals -Black or Red or Dun. The white tail end shown on several solid coloured breeds seems to be the last hint of the ‘line-back’ marking in such breeds.
Only a handful of surviving British breeds show similar markings (including the Gloucester and the Longhorn), along with several Scandinavian breeds and the Austrian Pinzgauer. At least 2 North American ‘Riggit’ marked breeds have sprung up from mixed European origin – the Randall Line-back, and the Canadian Speckled Park. Interestingly, German research indicates that the pre-domestication bovines, the Auroch, may have been carrying the same markings.
photo by Alan S Bias
From Britannic Rare Breeds website
By the end of the 19th century the original Riggit Galloway had become extinct or absorbed into the other Galloway cattle breeds. The existing Riggits are derived from throwbacks bred from existing white Galloway cattle. Since the 1980’s Miss Flora Stuart of Old Place of Mochrum, Port William near Kirkcowen encouraged local breeders of White Galloways to retain the Riggit throwbacks that were normally culled from a herd or excluded from breeding. Mr John Corrie of the Park of Tongland, Kirkcudbright, took a bull calf named Kyle Brook originally belonging to Miss Sheila Smith of Standard, Barrhill and discovered by Flora Stuart and mated him to his own Riggit Heifer named Park Fiona. The first calf from this mating was a heifer of correct Riggit type and markings.
The Riggit is similarly marked to the Gloucester and Longhorn breeds with a distinctive white line running the full length of the back.
Origin: Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland
Class: Polled, beef
Colour: White stripe along the back
Parentage: Related to the Galloway
Secretary: Mr Anton Coaker
Tel: 01364 631276
HISTORIC BRITISH "COLOR SIDED" CATTLE
"..The finishing stroke came when the previously flourishing meadows were torn up by mines and roads and covered with great heaps of refuse from furnaces, and the few remaining dairies became completely broken up. As a race which has passed its point of usefulness it has almost disappeared, and will soon be forgotten, and exist only in the records."