Episode
E578 Against All Odds: The Dreamers, Rebels, and Risk-Takers Who Built the Modern Holstein
- Podcast
- The Bullvine Daily Brief
- Published
- Jun 6, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2345
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://rss.com/podcasts/the-bullvine/2892229
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Summary
Hanover-Hill Triple Threat-Red was the calf the establishment said should never have been born — and they paid a world-record $60,000 for him anyway. Fall, 1972. A bright-red Holstein bull calf walks into a New York sale ring at a time when "red" meant a defect to breed out. When the gavel cracks, the barn can't believe it. This is the story of the bet everyone laughed at — and how it ended up running in barns all over the world. Key Moments Why a Swiss breeder named Schrago wouldn't take "no" — and pushed a red-factor mating the breed considered heresy The cow behind it all: Pride Lucky Barb, EX-94, and the request that sounded like an insult How a "scrawny calf" his own breeder nearly gave away became Osborndale Ivanhoe — and topped the Sire Summary eight straight years The £40 bull and the old cow nobody wanted to flush — and the son they produced: Picston Shottle The hard lessons that came with the triumphs — Bell, and a single recessive gene nobody saw coming The moment, decades later, when a Red & White stood Supreme — and closed a circle that opened in 1972 You've seen these names in a hundred pedigrees without knowing the fights behind them. Triple Threat, Ivanhoe, Shottle — every one of them was a "mistake" before becoming a foundation. Their blood runs through cattle most breeders use today, right down to the "Million Dollar Cow," KHW Regiment Apple-Red, and the Red & White Holsteins now standing at the top of the colored shavings. But this isn't a victory lap. It's a story about conviction — breeders who looked at an animal the experts had written off and saw something the fashion of the day couldn't. It's also honest about the cost: the same boldness that built the breed sometimes spread a hidden flaw before anyone understood the risk. The people in…