Santander, July 26: A ‘toreo light’ encerrona

I admit I had my doubts when it was announced that Ginés Marín would be taking on six bulls as part of Santander’s feria (I’ll say more about the feria programming in a later article). At least, I thought, he’s a varied torero so should be quite capable of conducting an encerrona, but I’d much rather have seen him with two other matadors on the cartel.

In the event, however, there was very little variety, either from Ginés or the bulls selected for the corrida - five similar looking domecqs from different ganaderías and a bull of the Hidalgo Barquero encaste from Pallarés. And, in addition, the toreo was disappointing - “Lección maestra de Ginés Marín,” declared this morning’s newspaper; “Una gran tarde de toros,” stated the Aplausos website; “Tarde redonda de un torero cuajado,” summarised mundotoro.com. It was nothing of the sort in my eyes and the eyes of several others present when we discussed matters in Bar Jamaica afterwards (although there was a dissenting opinion, it was very much in the minority).

There was some variety at the start of the corrida - tafalleras, cordobinas and chicuelinas to the first bull, from Domingo Hernández. The faena was reasonable too, despite Marín meekly following the bull around the plaza, but a pinchazo and estocada meant the petition was a minority one.

The next bull, from Jandilla, was given verónicas that made no attempt to turn the animal and a faena in which Ginés made very little effort, just standing and producing series that didn’t turn the bull, and concluding with some half-hearted arrimón. The first of what would be a number of fine estocadas this afternoon brought an ear, while the applause for the bull en arrastre was completely undeserved.

The pallarés was on next and was turned with the capote. But we had another boring faena of muletazos taking the bull past in straight lines, with little variety in the passes. A terrific estocada led to another oreja.

The juanpedro was met with a larga cambiada de rodillas, a chicuelina closing a sequence of poor opening capework. In this faena, at last, Ginés did curve the bull round him. And a further strong estocada brought the extremeño the first merited ear of the afternoon.

His work with a tricky bull from Antonio Bañuelos was interesting. Difficult on the right at first, the animal was made to turn through passes to its left horn, although in several of these the muleta was caught, before Ginés was able to return to the right hand, this time with some success. After a pinchazo and estocada, the dying bull caught and trampled the peón Fernando Pérez, who got up uninjured. Marín received an ovation and saludos.

Marín’s work with the last bull of the afternoon, from El Parralejo, was the high point of an encerrona that had mainly been an exhibition of ‘toreo light’. Here, at last, the matador was making an effort to construct a satisfying faena. There were curving tandas on both the right and left horns and he closed with a fine sequence of de frente passes before going over the bull’s right horn for another exceptional estocada. The bull was taken out to applause, fittingly minus its two ears.

Despite the matador’s largely lacklustre showing, the afternoon had been enlivened by some fine work from members of his cuadrilla, expanded for the occasion. Of particular note were the inputs by Joselito Rus, Javier Ambel, Fernando Sánchez, Rafael Rosa and Rafael Viotti. It was disappointing that Ginés Marín was miserly in permitting the banderilleros to take saludos and gave today’s two sobresalientes no opportunity to show what they could do.