Carey Linde, a Vancouver lawyer, is spearheading a project
to have a Cuban sculptor make a 600-kilogram statue of Rosafe Signet.
The Holstein bull had won grand championships in 1958 and
1959 at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair when Cuba bought him, probably for
about $100,000, auctioneer Tom Hays told the Globe and Mail for a two-page
centre spread in today’s newspaper.
He was a son of ABC Reflection Sovereign and was bred by an
Argentinian who was born in the same community as Che Guevara, one of Cuban
President Fidel Castro’s top military leaders.
The late Jack McCague of Alliston paid $20,000 to buy Rosafe
Signet as a calf.
Signet sired Ubre Blanca (white udder) in Cuba and she went
on to establish a Guiness World Record for millk production – 109.5 ltres one
day and 24,268.9 litres for a lactation.When she died, her body was preserved and is still on display.
She and Signet are well known across Cuba, including lessons
for school children.
Linde learned about Signet when he was visiting Cuba in 1977
and saw a head of the bull in the shop of sculptor Rita Longa.
She told him Castro commissioned the work.
That sculpture has disappeared, rumoured to have been melted
down for its metal.
Linde asked the Canadian government to help make a new
statue, but it said it would only support the project if the statue were built
in Canada.
He dropped the idea until about five years ago.
Now Cuban sculptor Tomas Lara has been commissioned to
prepare the statue. Cuba is donating the raw materials.
Lara, who is president of Cuba’s national advisory council
on monumental sculpture, will be followed closely because Rolan do Almirante is
shooting a film of the production.
Ontario farmers shipped thousands of Holsteins and many
purebred Yorkshire hogs to Cuba immediately following Jan. 1, 1961, when Castro’s
revolution succeeded. Some of them came from our family farm near Kitchener.
Castro was determined to address the nation’s widespread
poverty, offering free medical care and education and concentrating on
agricultural development.
He promised every child would have a glass of milk every
day. It’s a goal yet to be met, but not for lack of trying.
Brian McCague, Jack’s son and manager of the family farm,
recalls that during a trade mission to Cuba, when Castro learned he was in the
group he chatted with him for about half an hour.
He says Castro knew a lot about Canadian Holsteins, including
their pedigrees.
