Colombian toreros deserving more opportunities

A poster produced in defence of bullfighting in Colombia - the 35,000 figure is now overstated given the virtual collapse of the spectacle there (image from expat-chronicles.com)

Alejandro Talavante deservedly won the award for triunfador of Cali’s December feria, but viewers on OneToro may also have been impressed by the toreo of two Colombians - novillero Anderson Sánchez and matador Luis Miguel Castrillón. For many, little will be known about either torero, let alone the circumstances they find themselves in as bullfighters based in Colombia.

To my mind, Anderson Sánchez, with his temple and ability to turn his second novillo, the muleta held low, was the most impressive participant in Cali’s opening novillada despite his being the only one not to win an apendice. The toreo of his compatriot, Luis Miguel Ramírez, was too fast, while the Spaniard Cristiano Torres’ winning of two ears on his opening novillo was unfathomable, unless the president preferred straight-line toreo and was impressed by the youngster’s ability to push himself off the head of his bull and quickly retreat backwards whenever his dominio standing close in front of his novillo fell apart.

Anderson Sánchez (image from semana.com)

24-year-old Sánchez was born in 1999 in Lenguazaque, a town in the north of Colombia’s Cundinamarca Department known for its coalmining. Indeed, Anderson worked as a driver in a Lenguazaque mine as recently as 2021, leaving his job when he was selected for a novillada de oportunidad in Cali. His aficiõn had begun as a boy attending Lenguazaque’s annual feria in the town’s plaza portátil, and, encouraged by his grandfather and under the tutelage of matador Ricardo Gómez who lived nearby at Ubaté, he determined to become his home town’s first torero.

He first appeared in public at Sutamarchán (Boyacá) with a becerro of El Manzanal, then debuted in a traje de luces at Lenguazaque in March 2013, aged 14. That portátil also witnessed his first novillada con picadores, with novillos of Salento, on May 13, 2018.

From 1991-2008, the year that Colombia’s last great matador de toros, César Rincón, retired, Colombia held over 300 corridas and 100 novilladas each year, the country boasting some 62 permanent or temporary bullrings. Since then, however, not helped by legal wranglings and political manoeuvres that, for instance., led to the closure of the country’s premier bullring at Bogotá, and a poor response from the mundillo taurino (see my earlier article ‘Cali, Colombia and César Rincón’), Colombia’s taurine industry has collapsed. Few festejos were held in 2019 and 2020 (the latter year affected by the Covid pandemic), and by 2021 the country’s temporada consisted solely of seven corridas, six novilladas con picadores and 10 festivales.

That 2021 novillada de oportunidad at Cali (for which he prepared by purchasing and fighting three animals a puerta cerrada) ended well for Anderson - his novillo was indultado and a tearful torero awarded its ears. His performance won him a place in the city’s feria later that month, when he won a further ear. Since then, according to statistics produced by mundotoro.com, up until his appearance in this year’s feria, , Sánchez fought just six more times.

Luis Miguel Castrillón in Cali on December 29 (image from voyalostoros.com)

Luis Miguel Castrillón was born in Medellín in 1992, and left his family to train at Cali’s escuela taurina from the age of 14. Taken on by ex-matador José Antonio Campuzano, Castrillón spent two seasons in Spain, chalking up a total of 36 novilladas sin picadores during that time. After debuting with picadors at Manizales in 2011 and appearing elsewhere in Colombia, Luis Miguel returned to Europe for 2012, appearing in nine novilladas with limited success; Las Ventas and La Maestranza received him in silence, although he did leave on shoulders after two-ear faenas at Béziers, Laguna de Duero and Los Molinos. After another winter of appearances in Colombian ferias, he returned to Spain once more in 2013, but “por cuestiones de papeles, cosas de la vida y otros temas”, he and Campuzano were unable to obtain any contracts there.

However, Campuzano did manage to secure the youngster’s alternativa at Cali’s 2013 feria at the hands of Miguel Ángel Perera, with Iván Fandiño as testigo, when Castrillón heard an ovation on his first bull before winning an ear off his second. Since then, Luis Miguel’s career has been confined to Latin America with a handful of appearances each season - three corridas in Colombia in 2014, five in 2015 (including two in Mexico), five in 2016 (including one in Mexico), seven in 2017 (including the indulto of a bull of Juan Bernardo Caicedo at Sogamoso), 10 in 2018 (including one in Mexico and another Caicedo indulto at Arbeláez), five in 2019 (including one in Peru), two in 2020, three in 2021 (including two indultos at Manizales and Villapinzón) and five in 2022.

At Cali last month, Castrillón performed well on his first bull, producing some series of elegant, templados, naturales, and only lost an ear with a poor estocada (the Mondoñedo bull was give a vuelta en arrastre). It was unfortunate that his second animal was fast-turning, hooking and easily distracted and that Luis Miguel’s faena de aliño drew protests from the crowd. He is absent from the Manizales feria carteles, so his big opportunity of the season to make an impression has passed him by, leaving only the memory of those lovely naturales.

For both Sánchez and Castrillón, the only opportunity to break out of the inhibiting rut of a handful of performances each year would be by coming to Europe, although the financial costs of doing so may be prohibitive and Castrillón’s 2013 experience of Spain shows that achieving contracts as an extranjero is no easy matter in any case. Nevertheless, Cali’s Feria indicated that both toreros could achieve more given an increased number of opportunities to torear bulls.