Jock Richardson

The Final of the Ivan Fandiño Trophy

Last year, we drove from Santander to Bilbao with the owner of this blog to see the first ever final of the Memorial Ivan Fandiño competition. Today, it was easier to get there because we are living in Bilbao. For the fan of the sin pics novillada, such events as these are always fun and they do sometimes showcase a youngster one will see in future, more significant, events. Our first sightings of El Juli, Sébastien Castella, Rafaeilillo, Antonio Ferrera, Mhedi Savalli and a legion of others were in such events. The outstanding feature this morning was that the novillos of Zalduendo were, all save the third, most cooperative and allowed the lads to show off their potential.

Pedro Andrés is a tall, elegant classical torero who deserved the ear he cut off each eral.

Javier Zulueta was less secure and only managed a vuelta very much of his own volition because nobody encouraged him to take it.

*Eduardo Ruiz de Velasco (image from latierradeltoro.es)*

By the time young Eduardo Ruiz de Velasco – surely, he will have to shorten that name if he ever reaches the heights – had ridden halfway round the ring on the horns of his Zalduendo, twice, been toppled, trampled, and torn, and limped to the callejón after the kill, Pedro must have thought he had the prize in his bag. Not so! Despite his cutting of his second ear, he still had Eduardo’s final performance to watch. It was a complete contrast to his first effort. With security, temple, and grace, he performed a compact and pleasing faena which – perhaps along with his brilliantly bandaged legs – won him two ears and the trophy. Pedro was not best pleased: he beat the barrera like a boxer hits his training bag, accepted his second prize in a pet, and left the plaza in a bigger huff than even Morante can muster. We might see him again.

Who Needs a King When an Archangel is Around?

At least the Puerto de San Lorenzo bulls are from a different bloodline from the procession of Domecq bulls we have seen toreado de a pié so far. The Atanasios have gone but the Fraile’s have kept some of their genes. The bulls today did no honour to either Atanasio or Lisardo Sánchez; there wasn’t even some solemnity about their everyday mansismo. Still, we get what we get. With the bulls we got Morante de la Puebla, Manuel Escribano and Roca Rey, a man whose drawing power and popularity in Bilbao is immense: the plaza was not three quarters full for Morante or Escribano. You should have read by now that a man in the tendido insulted Morante yesterday. As Roca Rey invited his companions out to share in the ovation for what most of the world thought was his 2022 exhibition of epic toreo and I thought was pure circus, Morante would not emerge: fabulous! Nobody worth their salt likes to be insulted. Besides, these frivolities are for normal mortals.

When the man from Puebla did emerge, it was to meet a Puerto de San Lorenzo that did not merit the title toro bravo. Slow to move, erratic when it did, it was cowardice incarnate. Perhaps a report on Morante’s behaviour is unnecessary: he answered the true aficionado’s prayer that he put an end to all our miseries and arrange instant disposal of the pathetic creature. He aligned his adversary and killed it with a pinchazo and a descabello of rapid effect. I thought, probably mistakenly, as the light reflected on his weapon that the blade was bigger than normal – but that is to suggest a lack of respect for los reglamentos. By the time Morante faced his second bull, both Escribano and Roca Rey had cut an ear. How they did so will emerge in a moment. Morante said all about the Morante of Bilbao 2023 and some photographs of his work sent to me by an old aficionado photographer friend after the corrida said all that is to be said of toreo as art: the triumph of intelligence over brute force; beautiful images created by man with bull and lure and sustained in time; and as Curro put it, "never with the eyes taken off the horns". To say it was heavenly is to fall short. The wonder is that his pases are orthodox in structure – naturales, derechazos and common adornos – things we see every day. He raises them from the worldly with his unique posture, serenity, rhythm, the alchemy of his wrists and the magic of his imagination. He needed his unerring descabello to kill after a media estocada. Nobody cared that he had not won an ear; he had won back the love of the bilbainos.

Manuel Escribano exploded into our taurine lives one August morning in the early 2000s in a solo performance with four Osborne novillos in Villeneuve de Marsan and has sparkled there ever since like one of those firecrackers on a string with which they ignite the fallas de Valencia on March 19 or festoon the streets of Castellón to end la Magdalena in the fifth week of Lent. There was a space of several years when he did not appear much but some success in Seville bought him back on to the feria circuit. He has matured over the years, but is still a firecracker rather than a nuclear bomb. He regularly marches to la portagayola to start his work. He did so twice today, and the gesture worked both times. His first bull was by far the most interesting of the encierro as it charged with conviction and without rest throughout the three tercios. Escribano’s banderillas are spectacular but erratic; that did not prevent him from bringing the crowd to its feet in the second suerte and smiling through a faena of quick but well-formed orthodox pases. So convincing was his performance that he won a merited ear.

The fifth bull was nothing like the second, but Escribano rose to the challenge of squeezing what very little it had in it. No wonder he won acclaim for his portagayola and his four pairs of banderillas. His pair al quiebro al violín in his habitual death-defying tightness of terrain against the boards removed the memory of two banderillas in the bull and four on the sand that had been planted just before. The bull was no longer for toreando, but Escribano tried in his usual cheerful and willing way to encourage it. His prompt kill did not prevent a grateful salute from the audience.

We discussed Roca Rey the other day with an aficionada who is close to the Campuzano, Lalo de María, Roberto Domínguez stable to which he belongs. “Even his parents think too much is being asked from him”. I wonder what more can be asked from a torero than that he use the lures and his intelligence to dominate whatever bull appears in front of him and prepares it for the kill in his own style. All the blood and guts stuff we saw from Roca last year was but tremendismo and that, in my opinion, has no place in the art or the technique of toreo. Today, he drew a couple of mansos with which most of the risk taking had disappeared and a serious torero tackled tricky problems with care, calm and intelligence. The first noble manso had little depth, but Roca Rey nursed it through series of appropriate pases – one series of naturales touched the ceiling of perfection - and pauses to a state in which he was able to place a great estocada - proof, I think, that a well toreado bull is an important component in a successful kill. He had done what he had to do, nothing more could have been asked of him, and he won an ear. It was not spectacular or exciting; it was interesting and satisfying. The sixth bull was spent before it started so that Roca Rey could do no more than prove the fact and kill it. This time, he needed a pinchazo, an estocada and the descabello.

The Rains Came

I have a friend who once sat beside Sébastien Castella at a dinner. He was congratulating the matador on his increasingly successful career and his arrival in the pantheon of the figuras. The matador denied that he was yet a figura and declared his ambition, “I want to be a figura and fight Zalduendos”. Let this be a lesson to us all. Be careful what you wish for!

Today, along with Emilio de Justo and Ginés Marín, Castella would “fight Zalduendos”.

The Zalduendos are owned by the Baillerès family which as part of BMF (Bilbao Manrique FIT). M is for Manrique, the Choperas. FIT (la Federacion Internacional Taurina) is a Baillerès outfit and part of the financial base for BIVA (Bilbao Vista Alegre). A pile of initials like that smack to this cynic of jiggery-pokery, but for me conspiracy lurks behind every corporate logo and every professional taurino. Corrupt fruit or no, the Zalduendos today did no credit to anyone: they were weak, lacked aggression, looked unequal and only three had any noticeable nobility.

My admiration for the resurrected Sébastien is great. His performance with his second bull on May 19 Madrid convinced me – and I knew he wanted to fight Zalduendos. Had his first been as great as its horns we would have seen wonderful things: they were as sharp as needles and stretched up and out towards infinity. It started well in a strongly administered and bravely accepted suerte de varas and proceeded to charge José Chacón in a brilliant suerte de banderillas. The only fault with this bull was that it tended to reach inwards with its right horn, not insurmountable by a veteran torero. The welcome was of doblones and low pases. Perhaps it was the doblones that caused the injury, perhaps not. The bull damaged a leg and became unable to charge. All Castella could do was abbreviate. The fourth bull must have been born unable to charge. That such an anovillado specimen got into this cathedral of the toro bravo moulds my attitudes into those expressed above. So parado, it was scarcely able to be moved, the peones could not get the sticks in, and all Castella could do was peg single pases to a tombstone. The end, which started promptly, was prolonged and tedious.

Emilio de Justo tries to torear según los cánones, and often succeeds in so doing. With the second bull, he had material with which to work. His verónicas – he is tall and elegant – to welcome it were silken and slow. Our first sight of Ginés Marín was in a quite of chicuelinas of great closeness, precision, and beauty. Surprisingly with such a noble bull, the banderillas landed all over the sand. Order was regained in the faena. De Justo’s toreo is formal, planned, dominant and linked in flowing series. So was it with this bull. As the series were carefully piled one upon the other man and bull rose in harmony and glory. There was a blip towards the end, in a few shaky pases, but it was but a blip. The end came in a huge estocada slightly on the right side. The petition for an ear for this lovely faena was weak at first, pañuelos buried under ponchos donned in expectation of the impending storm perhaps. It did increase by the time the mulilleros were ready to take the bull away and Matías did the right thing. De Justo cut an ear.

It is 250 years, ten generations, since the bullfight as we know it was created by churchmen, Counts and butchers. That’s the same lapse of time after which God decided that the world had become so corrupt that it needed to be washed away by a monstrous flood. The two events cannot possible be related, though something is rotten in the state of the fiesta in Bilbao, and we certainly had a flood of Biblical proportions after the fourth bull.

De Justo dealt with the fifth animal in a manner very similar to his work with the second. There is nothing to grumble about in that. His positive, classical style, his temple and his rhythm, his precision and his calmness combine to capture the bull and mesmerise the audience. This bull was hardly the Charles Atlas of the bovine world, but it did have a smidgen of nobility which allowed de Justo to perform his toreo. He killed it with a great estocada, and the award of the ear was much more prompt.

The third toro, drawn by Ginés Marín, would have given the first and the fourth – still to come – a good run for their money in an English country show as docile, immobile, and completely lacking in aggression. But, come to think of it, they would all have fallen short when compared with their breed type. Poor Ginés did what he could, which was very little, and took several attempts to kill. By the time the sixth appeared, the rain was teeming down and the arena was a lake. Somehow a Zalduendo appeared that had strength and a readiness to charge. Ginés immediately understood its worth and performed verónicas of such temple and adjustment that all sensation of saturated jackets and wet pants was forgotten. The faena started with an anthologically beautiful natural and Marin continued to exploit the excellent left horn of the bull in miraculously templados series of naturales. The derechazos were less secure but no less meritorious. That danger lurked and difficulty abounded was obvious on the occasions when the bull skidded on the turn and lost balance. The terrible conditions seemed not to affect the matador. The faena went from strength to strength, from beautiful series to beautiful series until just the right moment. He killed with a pinchazo and an estocada and was awarded an ear.

We could hardly grumble when two matadors cut three ears from an encierro of non bulls in a Biblical flood.

El Juli’s Farewell to Bilbao

The afternoon started with an aurresku for El Juli. The sand was still spotted with puddles from yesterday and the dancer made an epic effort to complete his intricate movements and deliver his high kicks with success. An aurresku takes a long time to perform and it gives the aficionado time for thought. I try hard not to be sentimental about toros, toreo or toreros, but El Juli has been an important part of our lives for quarter of a century: we were in Mont de Marsan the morning he wore el traje de luces for the first time and indicated to us what would come; we were in Carabanchel the day Curro Vázquez retired and El Juli cut a tail from a Victoriano del Río bull; we were in Zaragoza the day he cut the tail off a melocotón Núñez de Cuvillo; we were in Las Ventas on the day of his consecration in Madrid that John Gordon wrote so movingly about. I did not shed a tear during the aurresku but was deeply grateful for all El Juli has done. He has not, in my opinion, been perfect. Since he adopted his strange method of killing from what I think is a grotesquely curved approach, he has fallen in my estimation.

When El Juli is intent on toreando successfully, he shows it in his body language: the way he walks, the firmness of his use of the lures; his unerring estimation of the qualities of the bull; the way he constructs his faenas. And so it was today. His first bull was salinero, and El Juli’s determination to succeed was obvious. He opened his work with some beautiful verónicas: slow, forward-leaning and eyes fixed on the horns. The piccing was light and the noble weakling was reluctant to charge the banderilleros. This animal needed a lesson in manners. No better man than El Juli could have been found to teach it. Despite the growing rainstorm and a searching right horn, the determined march to los medios heralded a complete El Juli faena. He caught the bull’s attention and worked it to los medios like a hypnotist pulling a patient to his will. The faena was a description of toreo pure and eternal: series with each hand of technical perfection and mesmerising duration, every component of the pass executed with an apparent ease; trincherillas and a farol that stole heartbeats and led the bull to the tablas for the kill. He was heading for at least one ear until he botched the kill. His curved entry was the El Juli of recent years personified; it was unsuccessful, and he needed eight descabellos to finish the killing process.

The last bull El Juli fought in Bilbao was called ‘Casero’ and circumstances were unfavourable as it entered. A great windstorm made sure the cape work was minimal. When the time came, the bull could not resist the encouraging muleta of El Juli. Orthodox until near the end, he got en el frente, advanced the lure and drew the bull round in powerful redondos to huge remates, the hand low and the rhythm clock-stopping. However, maybe El Juli was too anxious to leave Bilbao on shoulders. His cape and muleta work were thoughtful and clean and his faena beautifully constructed. On the other hand, there was a kind of urgency, even desperation, about his work that was unsettling to watch. Towards the end, there were afarolados, a pase de espaldas and some completely unnecessary pases de rodillas. Moreover, he performed that ugly backwards throw of the head looking up at the crowd that seemed to me to mean, “Look, I can do what the King elect does!” He entered to kill in his accustomed style, placed a pinchazo before a shallow estocada too far back and watched the death agonies of the bull with a circle of peones in a kind of terminal ceremony. This aficionado did not forgive him for the late attempts at crowd pleasing or the messy kill. He admits that El Juli had given his all for us in a brave and intelligent recapitulation of hundreds of afternoons since that distant morning in Mont de Marsan and did deserve his ear.

Paco Ureña sometimes seems unsure of what he should be doing, but when he settles into his best toreo, he is marvellous to watch. His first bull this afternoon was an erratic jumper. Ureña opened his work with some beautiful verónicas: slowly and calmly executed. After some forgettable pics and a poor tercio of banderillas, he concentrated on naturales. When he managed to prevent the bull from catching the lure, they were long, complete, and technically perfect. But too often a great series was immediately marred by an untidy one, and too often he slid fuera de cacho. Worse, perhaps, was the way the bull retreated from his control in search of the querencia of the boards. Still, his excellent naturales, done in the meaning of the word, might have won an ear had he killed well. Which he did not. His killing was poor. And it was poor also in the fifth, a weak and noble animal with little interest in cooperating with Ureña. This time, he ended an unsuccessful afternoon with a procession of pinchazos leading up to an estocada and an aviso.

I have read of Roca Rey as The jaguar of Perú; el heredero de Julián (¿López?); El coronel de Perú; el dios de Perú; El Rey de la taquilla; Su Majestad Roca in the press this week. The poor lad has a lot to live up to. My notes on his first bull this afternoon used phrases like: “enganchados flaps with the right”; “naturales allowing the lure to be caught”; “derechazos enganchados con el pico”; “peg and run pases”; “at least he is crossing”; “a bajonazo in the ribs”. By the time the sixth bull emerged, my notebook had become unusable – I will go to the corrida tomorrow and will need it – but I remember the faena well enough. The bull arrived at the muleta with its rear end at the boards of Tendido 5 with its matador well into los medios. He wanted to give us the customary opening. He got it, but not without spending several minutes edging towards the bull and drawing a sinuous canal in the sand with his edging feet: derechazos, cambios de espaldas, a trincherilla. The bull turned remarkably quickly for a bull in a swimming pool and at one point Roca was in the doorway to death. “For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.” And there are plenty of them. They also like the kind of genuine toreo with which Roca Rey proceeded to subject his tricky little bull – everyone likes that kind of toreo. Composed, assured, with a clear view of what was needed, he produced a faena of derechazos and naturales that was compact, accurate and clean, a faena that proved what he could be if he wanted. He was desperate to please the masses – he and El Juli had drawn nigh on 13,000 to the plaza – and had to walk in death’s dark vale for a while longer. The arrimón got tighter and tighter, the bull closer and closer, the matador more and more frantic; inevitably, the kill came with the aviso in the form of a pinchazo and a low sword. One or two folk thought Matías was correct to send him home earless.

Why Did So Few Come?

The bulls of Dolores Aguirre are legendary for their appearance and their aggression. Fundamentally Atanasios, they have some Conde de la Corte blood also. Before she died Dolores Aguirre said that she would rather send her bulls to the abattoir rather than deviate from her principles as a breeder. Devotees of her bulls hoped that her daughter who inherited the herd would continue her mother’s tradition.

When we saw their debut in Bilbao in 1987, at a time when our old friend Pepe Alcázar, the South American correspondent of El Ruedo, used to say, “¡No hay figuras!”. They were fought by J M Manzanares (3); Niño de la Capea (6); and Joselito (5) - the numbers denote their place on the escalafón that year. Today, there were fought by Antonio Ferrera (12); Domingo López Chaves (35); and Damián Castaño (56). We had figuras way back in the day and they were not afraid to torear real bulls. I cannot remember how many people came to watch them in 1987; today, there were around 3,000. What is wrong with Bilbao? There are few aficionados, few toristas and thousands of celebrity-torero adorers.

At least we had an aurresku. The same dancer had an even more difficult platform because the water from yesterday had not dried up. It was to be the last corrida of López Chaves in Bilbao and he was given the appropriate homenaje.

Antonio Ferrera, the most figura of the three, had a difficult afternoon. His first bull was a huge assassin with which most of his engagement was spent dodging out of the way of scything horns. He, wise man that he is, opted to dispatch it early. After a few testing pases, he marched across the ring, his ayuda point parallel to the ground and muleta furled, to get his killing implements. He dispatched the bull with an estocada and a descabello and set off to spend most of the rest of the afternoon directing the lidia. Those who blamed him for the quick dispatch of the bull must have been hiding under their paraguas. No doubt they were worried that every bull of the afternoon would be the same. They need not have worried.

Ferrera’s second bull was the biggest of a huge lot, weighing 678 kilos with trapío to match its weight and impressive horns. Ferrera wisely placed it far from the horse for its first pic. The charge was dramatic and purposeful; the capsizing of the horse as easy as swotting a fly off a table and the subsequent struggle with the equine was epic. The second pic, charged at from a similar distance, was murderous. That did not bother ‘Yegüizo’. It charged the banderilleros straight and true, and they provided a marvellous suerte. Antonio João Ferreira and Alberto Carrero earned every breath of air that went into their standing ovation. By now, the rain had started to fall in fountains as clouds swept over the plaza in a succession of heavy showers and sporadic clear patches. The sand had become a lake of water and mud and during the clear patches there was a surreal reddish light amplified by the colour of the empty seats. Ferrera might have chosen to spend a little more time with the bull – it was charging still – but opted to bring it under control with well-judged low pases before killing it with an estocada. In my opinion, we had not seen enough of either Ferrera or ‘Yegüizo’; we were in the presence of an impressive bull and a totally capable matador in unbelievable conditions.

Domingo López Chaves met ‘Botero’, a bull with the bulk of a statue by the artist who shares its name. Its charges were short and at the beginning it was hooking violently with each horn. Moreover, it had an urge to dig in with its back to the boards. What it lacked in interest in the cloth, it had in tonnes for the horse. Engaging low under the peto, it worked hard to lift the horse and took a long hard pic with gusto. Its second vara was no less exciting and impressive. It approached from a distance and used its neck in another epic struggle. Suertes de varas with Dolores are easy to perform well; banderillas are less so. By the end of a long tercio, there were only three sticks in the bull. López Chaves may not torear often, but he is competent and positive. As he built a faena of linked derechazos, the band struck up ‘Valencia’. For two Valencia addicts, the music was heart-warming stuff together with a torero drenched with rain toreando with grace and beauty as if inspired. His cambio de mano into the naturales was silken and the left-handers natural in their flow. This was a bull whose horns were higher than the torero’s head. He took it to the boards, placed a metisca and, encouragement ringing in his ears, killed with an estocada.

Undaunted by rain or the size and power of the fifth bull, the Salamancan continued to torear with gusto. After another fierce battle with the picador, and a difficult, but in the end successful, suerte de banderillas, López Chaves created a faena like his first. He was forced into using the sword in ayudados towards the end, but it was a sterling effort. He killed with two pinchazos and a bajonazo. In no way had he disgraced himself with such powerful bulls in such dreadful conditions.

Damián Castaño drew ‘Clavijero’ first. The bull was 597 kilos worth of strength and power, Damián 63 kilos of goodwill and enthusiasm. And that is what the fiesta brava is all about. The bull was reluctant to go into Castaño’s welcoming verónicas and distracted when it moved. But it went to the horse with a calculated intent to kill and took two fierce pics with a will. It retained its calculating bent in banderillas. Castaño was not to be bowed; he performed a faena dedicated to López Chaves of linked derechazos that would have made any self-respecting “figura” jealous. This was a mean bull; Castaño is a generous matador. He punctuated his meritorious series of derechazos with spontaneous trincherazos and a cheeky pase del desdén. The cambio de mano into a trincherillo was just as cheeky. Attempts to build with the left hand were marred, but a molinete was a picture. It had been a fine faena and one that might have won an ear. He hit bone three times, the sword flying in the air each time, and finally tried to descabellar. The bull was at death’s door, but lunged and caught him. As he was carried from the ring, it was hard not to think of Yiyo on that August afternoon nearly 27 years ago.

Castaño was not seriously wounded. He returned to the ring in a deluge to face the second melocotón bull of the afternoon, the 612 kilo ‘Cigarrero’. The drama had been building all afternoon: uniformly terrifying bulls; sand now ankle deep in mud and water; the rain falling in torrents; a diminutive torero just freed from the infirmary. It is a sad aspect of the Fiesta that what Castaño did next will not bring him a flood of contracts and raise him from the lowly position in which he does not deserve to rest. Scarcely anyone saw him and a few paragraphs in the press will soon be forgotten. Those lucky and wise enough to attend will never forget the manner in which ‘Cigarrero’, mirroring his brothers, attacked the horse and fought against the pics, the honest work of the picadors and the banderilleros, and the second classical faena of Damián Castaño, monterada in the style of Esplá, with its linked series of derechazos and naturales forcing a reluctant bull into smooth charges, its persistent dedication to the task and the total denial of the self. The ear Castaño cut after his pinchazo and estocada was the most – for some the only – worthwhile ear of las Corridas Generales de 2023.

Impressions of Bilbao’s Corridas Generales de Aste Nagusia 2023 (Part II)

Jock Richardson

The life and times of El Ruedo

Impressions of Bilbao’s Corridas Generales de Aste Nagusia 2023 (Part I)