3-011-897 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The First-Prize Shorthorn Bull, 1864. 'Forth, the winner, is the property of the Messrs. Cruikshanks, of Sittyton...He is a roan, of about four years and a half old, and was bred by Mr. Stirling, M.P., of Keir...Without being what is called "a gallant bull," he is perhaps the deepest and most evenly-fleshed one that ever entered a showyard and thanks to careful feeding and exercise, he looks nearly as blooming as when he won the first prize in the fields of Battersea, and just lost the gold medal to the late Mr. Webb's white calf. He has only been out five times, and was once beaten by his half-brother at Perth. At the Four Counties meeting he won in his class, and took the challenge cup for the best bull entitled to compete at the show. In 1863 he did not go to Worcester; but he met Duke of Tyne, the Worcester winner, at the Highland Society at Kelso, and beat both him and Van Tromp. After that he was sold to the Messrs. Cruikshanks, who brought him, by sea, to Newcastle, to meet a very strong class of twenty-eight, and who purpose showing him on his return for the challenge cup at Aberdeen, which has been won for two successive years by bulls of their breeding'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.