Batailles de Reines - Doues-Champillon Elimination

The queens of the Aosta Valley

The Batailles de Reines are the most heartfelt popular tradition of the Aosta Valley: a competition featuring cows of the Aosta breed, animals with a strong and combative temperament, naturally inclined to confront each other within the herd to establish hierarchy. The contests, bloodless and governed by precise rules, take place with horn clashes until one of the two cows yields, decreeing the winner.

The Champillon elimination

The Doues elimination takes place on the Champillon pasture, at a high altitude in the Municipality of Doues, in the province of Aosta, in the Gran San Bernardo valley at the foot of the Grand Combin massif. It is one of the summer eliminations of the Regional Competition: here, owners bring their queens to compete in the typical natural pasture amphitheater, in a day that blends traditional sport, peasant culture, and village festival.

How the competition works

The eliminations, spread across spring, summer, and autumn in the Aosta Valley municipalities, select the queens who gain access to the great Regional Final, scheduled for late October at Croix-Noire in Aosta. The event is organized by the association A.Re.Ta. (Amis des Reines et des Tchèvre) and represents an identity pillar of the rural culture of the Aosta Valley Region.

More than a race

Around the fights, the Champillon day offers the weighing of the queens, a lunch with typical local products, and moments of conviviality that make the elimination an authentic Aosta Valley mountain festival.