Archetype of the Saltillo Bloodline Don Antonio Ruedo Quintanilla, Marqu s de Saltillo, founded his ranch in 1850, by purchasing the very famous one of Jos Picavea de Lesaca Montemayor, a herd which Jos s father, Pedro Jos , had acquired from Ignacio Mart n, one of the two principal branches of the Vistahermosa trunk and the popularity of which his widow, Isabel Montemayor, was able to raise higher than it had been in her husband s lifetime. His widow, Da Francisca Osborne continued with the same enthusiasm as her husband had shown until she handed direction of the herd over to her son, Rafael Rueda Osborne in the dying years of the last century. He sold it to Felix Moreno Ardanuy in 1918. These bulls are of such fine conformation that it seems that they are merely middle-sized. The classic type of the Saltillo bull has been of very fine conformity and very fine skin.
Hair colour is generally negro, entrepelado, and c rdeno, with the latter predominating.
They have fine hooves and small fetlocks. They are bulls of considerable breeding, great temperament and courage. Their qualities have been transmitted to all of the herds bred from or based upon them totally or in part. Jos Arias de Saavedra, by Da Dolores Monge, the widow of Murube. The two ganader as came in a direct line from the foundational ranch of the Counts of Vistahermosa, being the two principal branches of the five into which their herd had been divided in 1822 and which have been conserved pure without any type of cross.