THERE was no big hat, cigar or Cuban heels for American Keith Jones, judge of the Galloway breeds at the Royal Melbourne Show.
Instead, here was a judge with an animal-science qualification from Indiana's famed Purdue University judging what many commercial cattlemen regard as hobby cattle.
"Believe me, we have the same demand for these type of cattle as there is here," said the quietly-spoken Mr Jones, who manages one of the top Belted Galloway studs in the US, Driftwood Plantation in South Carolina.
"Yes, I guess you can call them executive pets, but you still have to run them commercially," he said.
Driftwood Plantation is a 150-cow herd, owned by the elderly Sue Drew, who along with Mr Jones has made several trips to Australia to buy Australian genetics.
Driftwood Plantation, besides selling stud cattle, also turns off 50 steers into a niche market.
Mr Jones said the Australian Belted Galloway was on average a better type of animal than you'd find in the US.
"We come here to buy cattle to put scale on our stock, and we go to Scotland when we want to go back to the traditional smaller animal," he said.
After the show Mr Jones and Mrs Drew will spend a few weeks inspecting Australian herds, no doubt with an open order book.
At the Melbourne Show, Mr Jones presided over the three Galloway breeds - Belted Galloway, Galloway and the Miniature Galloway.
There were total entries of 86 cattle on account of 25 breeders.
Ashleigh Michael's Ashleigh stud from Leongatha was the most successful exhibitor in the Belted Galloways, while Di and Cameron Woolfe's Wilkamdai stud from Red Hill won the Miniature Galloways and Allen and Liz Snaith from Clonbinane the Galloways.
Ashleigh Michael's two-year-old Belted Galloway heifer was the supreme exhibit in the Galloway family feature show.
