“[T]he great – dare I say that – Espartaco,” wrote Jock Richardson in one of his recent reports on this blog site from Castellón’s Feria de la Magdalena. The Sevillian critic Carlos Crivell clearly has no qualms in lauding the matador judging by the title of his new biography of the torero who headed the escalafón de matadores for seven consecutive seasons between 1985 and 1991.

In a prologue to the book, which, apart from starting with recollections of Espartaco’s final despedida in Sevilla in 2015, takes a straightforward chronological approach to the diestro’s career, Crivell acclaims the matador as “la ultima gran figura del toreo” of the 20th century and explains that the book has been written with Espartaco’s blessing. However, there appear to be no new insights from the matador to illuminate its pages: rather a judicious use of contemporary quotations that tell the story of Espartaco’s career while also providing information regarding the matador’s own thoughts and his personal life.

Juan Antonio Ruiz Román, the figura Espartaco, was the product of his father, Antonio Ruiz Rodríguez, a novillero, also with the Espartaco apodo, who took the alternativa in 1966 only to reluctantly decide by the start of the seventies that the economic needs of his family required him to change gold for silver. He acted as a peón for a number of rejoneadores, after concluding he was not very good at placing banderillas. Having failed to make the big time himself as a matador, Antonio decided to instruct two of his sons, Juan Antonio (born 1962) and Francisco José (1966), in the technique of toreo.

Crivell makes clear, in general terms, that the father’s teaching methods were highly demanding and sometimes brutal; he even wonders, in the case of the elder son, “whether it was worth the price”. Aged eight, for example, and put in front of a becerra by his father, Juan Antonio was tossed and immediately ran off and hid in a vineyard until the tienta had finished. Even since Juan Antonio’s career as a matador ended, the relationship - at least in taurine terms - has been a difficult one. A keen participant in festivales, Espartaco deliberately limited those in which his father also took part: “We could have appeared together more often, but my father makes a big deal out of it, so I’ve stopped doing it. The problem is he regards it as a competition, a challenge, and it becomes a hard time instead of an enjoyable day.”

Looking back on his career, Espartaco padre considers his own main failing to have been an inability to think in front of the bull. But as his son’s experience of facing becerras grew, so his facility for resolving the problems the animals posed became evident. On March 19, 1975, aged 13, the youngster made his debut in a traje de luces, cut two ears, was carried out on shoulders and given a muleta as a prize: his father told him he should have done better. By the end of that temporada, having initially viewed the boy perform in the serious element of a Chino Torero comedy show, Pablo Lozano had taken Juan Antonio under his wing and persuaded Chino Torero to take the youngster with them to Latin America, where the lad could gain more experience in front of animals and age limits for public appearances were less strict than in Spain.

In 1976, the Lozano family did manage to put on novilladas with the still under-age Juan Antonio appearing under the name ‘Manolo Rodríguez’, a situation that continued until January 1978, when, now aged 16, he finally appeared under his own name. By the season’s close, the sevillano had chalked up 56 novilladas con picadores, winning 131 ears and 23 tails. The novillero de moda in 1979 (although still to appear in Sevilla and Madrid), Espartaco took the alternativa in August during Huelva’s feria, with Manuel Benítez El Cordobés as padrino and Manolo Cortés as testigo, a four-ear triumph for the new matador leading to 21 further contracts that season.

*Espartaco in an adorno with a Francisco Galache bull*

After a reasonable first full temporada in 1980, with triumphs in Colombia and 34 corridas in Europe, Espartaco left the Lozanos for the Choperitas, Javier and José Martínez Uranga, performing in 72 corridas in 1981 (59 in Spain and the remainder on the other side of the Atlantic), frequently appearing with the Choperitas’ other toreros, Niño de la Capea and Manzanares, although Crivell says the matador Juan Antonio was closest to at this time was Paquirri, on whose ranch they would share winter training. As 1982 approached, however, Espartaco was an unhappy torero. He was experiencing the then typical life of an up-and-coming matador with a major empresa - a busy, physically and mentally demanding time, often facing toros duros, but with relatively little to show for it financially at the season’s end. In 1982, Espartaco achieved the first of his five exits through la Maestranza’s Puerta del Príncipe, confirmed his alternativa in Madrid, with Paquirri as his padrino, and, at the age of 20, headed the year’s escalafón for the first time with 67 corridas in Spain and France to his credit.

1983 (a year that included two serious gorings) and 1984 followed in similar fashion, Espartaco still appearing frequently, on occasion facing ganaderías such as Conde de la Maza, Cuadri, Pablo Romero and Moreno Silva, but receiving relatively little critical acclaim or financial reward. Paquirri’s fatal goring in September 1984 hit Juan Antonio hard, while, despite his apparent success in terms of contract numbers, his financial situation was becoming increasingly unsustainable. For 1985, he bade the Choperitas farewell, taking on as his manager instead José Luis Marca on the basis of a financial promise never kept (the matador had purchased a small finca, but was struggling to pay the 18% mortgage interest: in the end, a friendly bank manager came to his rescue). As the season began, Espartaco was seriously contemplating resolving his financial difficulties and facing fewer challenges by becoming a banderillero.

However, in Sevilla’s April feria, he drew the Manolo González bull ‘Facultades’ in a corrida televised across Spain, cut its two ears to add to another won off his first bull and left through la Puerta del Príncipe for the second time. His next two corridas saw him carried through the gates of Jerez and Madrid, and now he was a matador everyone wanted to see and whom the empresas were prepared to pay well. By the end of the season, top of the escalafón once more, Espartaco had fought in 91 corridas, many of them sell-outs, cut 156 ears and 27 tails, and was earning good money at last.

Juan Antonio’s consistency, his ability to perform well with not so good animals as well as decent ones, always with a ready smile, continued throughout the next six seasons as he headed the escalafón each time. The mundillo tried to manufacture rivals to the sevillano - Paco Ojeda, Niño de la Capea, the young Litri, Ortega Cano, the experienced Roberto Domínguez - but Espartaco saw them all off. In 1986 (now managed by Manolo González), he won 172 ears and nine tails from 88 corridas; in 1987 (back with the Lozanos), 175 ears and four tails from 100 corridas; in 1988, 124 ears and seven tails from 82 corridas. 1989 saw another change in apoderado - to Rafael Moreno, who would manage him for the rest of his career - but no diminution in corridas, Espartaco continuing to top the escalafón for the next three years - 87 corridas in ‘89 (winning 141 ears and 11 tails); 107 in 1990 (167 ears and six tails); and 80 in 1991 (88 ears and three tails).

Despite this success and his popularity with the Spanish public, rare was the occasion on which aficionados and the taurine critics praised Espartaco. The matador’s view was that, “So many criticisms don’t annoy me; I’m above all that, because I count on the appreciation of my fellow professionals and of the public.” The alternativa of his younger brother, Francisco José Espartaco Chico, at Huelva in 1989, meant that thereafter the two often appeared together - 66 times in all - which, from my point of view, was an added disincentive to see Espartaco, as his brother was never more than a workmanlike torero.

There is relatively little discussion of Espartaco’s toreo in Crivell’s book, the longest consideration being a reprint of part of a 6Toros6 interview by José Carlos Arévalo and Michael Wigram conducted in between the 1993 and ‘94 seasons. By now, he had taken his foot slightly off the accelerator (a particularly severe bout of pancreatitis, which the matador had suffered from since 1986, in 1992 even causing Juan Antonio to consider retirement in 1993), but was doing better in the principal plazas, with successes in Sevilla, Madrid, Pamplona and Bilbao. “Each torero has his own technique,” said Espartaco, “In my case, it involves treating the bull smoothly and always responding to it with temple. I don’t agree with the view that the animal has to be punished. With a noble and good bull, if you treat it violently, its conditions will worsen. If a bull comes forward suddenly, with its head held high and hooking, you still shouldn’t respond violently as it will just make things even more complicated […] If a bull encounters a smoothly-given muleta, it becomes disconcerted and realises that its fighting serves no purpose, and then it’s possible, little by little, for it to submit.

“In the lidia, there are some general principles. With those bulls that don’t appear well-disposed, just as with all, you have to give them the correct distance and positioning and cite them where, how and when it suits to then apply a very risky and very true technique which I call ‘the secret of the last second’, which isn’t, in fact, a secret, but which involves waiting until the bull almost touches the lure - a point at which almost all bulls reveal themselves and tell you what they’re like; it’s as if a light comes on, and you understand them. It’s difficult to allow an animal to come towards you that you don’t see clearly and don’t know whether it will catch you. There are many bulls, bad ones, who carry their secret, and it could turn out that they’re not so bad, but not if you don’t bring them forwards and submit them to that ‘last second’ test.

*Derechazo to a bull of Lourdes Martín Pérez Tabernero*

“[…] Everything you may be able to do well with a bull is toreo […] Inspiration, taste, art are achieved when the technique of toreo permits it […] It’s bad when you’re a figura and have to triumph every afternoon. It’s not a torment exactly, but I feel a sense of responsibility - and I have it in many bullrings - where they’ve made a big sacrifice each year to contract me and other figuras. I think about how much it’s cost people to come and see me, and I tell myself, ‘Today, I must cut ears.’ The problem starts from here because there are many bulls, and very different ones, and the torero’s obligation is to understand them and resolve the issues they can present. The sole obsession of the torero is the bull […] Before my time, the figuras were expected to torear the good bulls and the half-good ones. After me, the figuras must torear many bad bulls too. This is possible when one discovers the good nature that many difficult bulls carry inside them.”

It seems, then, that, for the bulk of his career, toreo was a matter of technique, hard work and obligation for Espartaco - there is little sense of enjoyment in the matador’s descriptions of his performances. Then, at the end of 1994, he injured his right knee in a charity football match; tendinitis was also diagnosed. After treatment, he reappeared on Easter Sunday in Sevilla only to be badly tossed by a bull, injuring his knee once more. He returned to the bullrings in June, but his knee was still painful and affecting his confidence. At the season’s end, he decided not to torear in public again until he felt 100% - a process that was to see him ‘in dry dock’ for the next three years.

He returned in 1999, taking part in 67 corridas that season, but the following year his right leg was the subject of a cornada grave in his opening corrida at Valencia and Espartaco only managed 17 corridas all year. The next season of 37 corridas ended in a disappointing despedida in Sevilla, so disappointing that, 14 years later, Juan Antonio accepted the offer for an Easter Sunday re-run of the event, which this time saw him, grey-haired now, win an ear from each bull, cut the coleta and be carried out of the ring on shoulders.

In between, he kept his toe in by appearing in a number of ‘special event’ corridas and also took part in a substantial number of charitable festivales. He has taken a keen interest in assisting the formation of young toreros, in particular Javier and Borja Jiménez from his home town of Espartinas (the latter took the alternativa at Espartaco’s 2015 despedida). In 2003, Espartaco was awarded la Medalla de Oro al Mérito en las Bellas Artes by the Spanish Government and in 2022 la Medalla de Oro de Andalucía.

Carlos Crivell has written a comprehensive and illuminating biography of a remarkable torero whose place in taurine history should not be overlooked.

Mr Consistent

Valencia Valuations

La Magdalena 2024 (Part II): Una Plata Fuerte Un Poco Flojo