La Copa Chenel - a worthwhile initiative
Last weekend saw the Comunidad de Madrid’s and la Fundación del Toro de Lidia’s latest joint initiative get underway with events at Miraflores de la Sierra and Chinchón (televised and streamed live by Telemadrid). Whilst this blog has criticised the FTL’s approach to establishing novillero competitions across Spain - which, while giving novilleros more opportunities, does nothing to address the financial circumstances that prevent more novilladas from occurring - la Copa Chenel is a good idea deserving of support.
The thinking behind the series appears to reflect upon the realities of corridas in 2021. The temporada continues to be an unpredictable mishmash of events, with some ferias held but shortened, and others cancelled altogether. Los toros can happen in Colmenar Viejo, but not in neighbouring San Sebastián de los Reyes, to give just two examples. Those corridas that are occurring tend to be based around limited lists of the top toreros and the ganaderías they like to appear with. The situation for those outside either list continues to be bleak.
So the Comunidad de Madrid’s and la Fundación del Toro de Lidia’s latest initiative should be welcomed, for, while favouring (though not exclusively) toreros and ranches from Madrid Province, it focuses on those matadors and ganaderos generally absent from this year’s reduced circuit. It gives them a reason to carry on, perhaps even a boost to their standing which will assist their efforts further down the line. The locations for the corridas, too, include places that would probably have seen no taurine action this year were it not for this certamen.
Ángel Téllez - one of the Copa Chenel’s participants
The construction of each of the initial six corridas is of interest to the aficionado too. Each one comprises at least one experienced matador of ‘toros duros’, joined by up-and-coming young toreros or those whose careers have been beached in recent years (Fernando Adrián, for instance, was last heard of teaching in an escuela de tauromaquia rather than appearing in public). In addition to this mixture, each corrida represents a desafío between two different ganaderías and two different encastes - an approach that is continued through to the competition’s final.
Judging the toreros’ performances is a jury comprising the ganadera Belén Ortega; banderillero Federico Navalón El Jaro; aficionados Alfonso Ibarra and Marta Valentí; Sigfrido Herraez, from the Centro de Asuntos Taurinos; and David Cajigas, an arenero at Las Ventas. Points are awarded as follows:
Up to two points for ‘actitud’ (it’s unclear whether this refers to attitude or posture)
Up to two points for artistic expression
Up to three points for lidia (the matador and his cuadrilla to be included in this assessment)
Up to two points for swordwork
A point for each ear or tail awarded.
Half a point will be lost for each aviso given. The matador’s final score will be the average of each of his rankings across his two bulls. However, some of the higher-scoring matadors could fall by the wayside as the competition rules state that one torero from each of the initial six corridas will have a semi-final place.
Voting results for the individual toreros appearing last weekend have just been announced. Sergio Serrano showed well in the opening corrida at Miraflores (although Tomás Angulo was the sole ear winner), and each participant cut two ears in front of an overly generous ‘full house’ crowd at Chinchón, with Alberto Lamelas and Jesús Enrique Colombo, to my mind, establishing a stronger case for semi-final inclusion than Esaú Fernández. Interestingly, it’s the two youngest matadors, Angulo and Colombo, who are going through to the semi-final stage.
The Comunidad de Madrid and Fundación del Toro de Lidia clearly intend the Copa Chenel to become a regular fixture as the ganadería judged to be the best performing in each desafío (Monte la Ermita and José Escolar from the first weekend’s corridas) is promised a place in next year’s competition.
The remaining carteles are as follows:
– S 04/09: Navas del Rey. Fernando Robleño, Adrián de Torres y Lama de Góngora (Flor de Jara y Baltasar Ibán)
– S 11/09: Valdetorres del Jarama. Cristian Escribano, Fernando Adrián y Ángel Téllez (Los Maños y Montealto)
– D 12/09: San Martín de Valdeiglesias. José Carlos Venegas, Rafael Cerro y Jorge Isiegas (Dolores Aguirre y Los Eulogios)
– S 09/10: Villa del Prado. Sánchez Vara, Paulita y Miguel de Pablo (Quintas y Partido de Resina)
– S 16/10: Valdemorillo. 3 semifinalistas from the first three corridas (Prieto de la Cal y Zacarías Moreno)
– D 17/10: San Agustín de Guadalix. 3 semifinalistas from the second three corridas (Cuadri y Rehuelga)
– S 23/10: Cadalso de los Vidrios. Gran Final (José Vázquez y Adolfo Martín).