THE BRUNA COW AND THE BARDIGIANO HORSE
Bruna breed animals have been bred on the farm since 1959. For fifty years, I have passionately dedicated myself to improving the breed in terms of both the production and the quality aspects of the milk. At the farm you can of course taste the Parmigiano Reggiano produced exclusively with Sola Bruna milk! The story of how I came to the Bardigiano horse is a curious one. In 1974 a gentleman came to see me, a lover of Bruna cows who, professionally, looked after an important equestrian centre in Monza. During the meeting I told him that some animals lived on our mountains which belonged to a local breed, but which were now at risk of extinction. This man became curious to the point of asking me if he could see some specimens, and that's how we organised a trip up Mount Pepli, between the high Valtaro and the Valceno.
We succeeded in identifying some specimens; there were only a few of them but they showed the original characteristics of the breed, characteristics which a passionate breeder described to us and from which we fixed the standard of the breed. In 1975 the first exhibition was organised with about fifty animals. From that moment, the selection of the Bardigiano horse began through exciting research and the breeding of stallions with character specificity. In 1976 this breed was officially recognised by the Ministry of Agriculture as one of Italy's national breeds. Even today, in the first week of August, the annual National Bardigiano Horse exhibition takes place in Bardi. Today the breed is present not only in different regions of Italy, but also in Germany and the rest of Europe.
