Aosta · Italy

The Battle of the Queens

Every spring, on the way up to the summer pastures, Valdostana cows settle among themselves who is in charge. They meet head down, push, and the one that yields walks away. This is not training: it is how a herd establishes its order, and it happens whether or not anybody is watching. Here it was decided to watch. Since 1958 the region has run a championship: heats through the season in village arenas, and a final in October that fills the stands with tens of thousands. The cows are weighed and placed in categories, nobody goads them, the horns are not sharpened, and a contest ends when one of the two turns away. The overall winner takes the title of reina and her breeder a reputation that lasts a year. It is a competition in which the animals do what they would do anyway, and the people merely keep score.

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Are the cows hurt?

The rules are built so that it does not happen. The horns stay as they are, no goads are used, a vet is present, and each contest closes as soon as one of the two turns, which usually takes seconds. The contenders are of the same breed and similar weight, and the push is the one they give each other in a field. It remains a competition between animals, with everything that implies, and it is entirely reasonable to decide not to attend. Those who do will find a crowd that is mostly following its own neighbours.

Where and when can it be seen?

The heats run from March to September in the communal arenas, one weekend after another and all over the valley. The final is held in October at Croix-Noire, on the edge of Aosta, and that is the day that fills the stands. The dates come out each year at the start of the season. If you are in the valley in autumn and see lines of parked cars along a side road with people walking towards a field, it is almost certainly a batoille.

Why does it matter so much to breeders?

Because a reina is not merely a winner. In the herd she is the animal that leads the others to the pasture and decides where they graze, and a farm that produces good reines has a reputation that translates into what its animals are worth. Behind the day out lies a selection as long as a working life: which cow to breed, which heifer to keep, which bloodline has produced animals that hold their ground. The contest is the visible part of a trade.

Where it is

45.7405, 7.3498 · Open in Maps

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