Winner and loser

If 2020 had gone to plan, Tomás Rufo would have been a matador de toros by now, his alternativa having been announced for Mont de Marsan’s feria in July. As it is, he remains seven novilladas short of the number needed before he can step up to the status of matador. His three appearances in 2020 at Olivenza, Toledo and a GR event at Herrera del Duque (Badajoz) underlined the youngster’s standing as the most promising of today’s novilleros, with ears cut on each occasion. As I write this, it has been announced that the toledano has surprisingly decided to split from the management of Plaza 1, who took him on after his success in Madrid’s 2019 Feria de Otoño. Surely, there’ll be sufficient contracts for him in 2021 for his alternativa to take place?

Winners

The season for novilleros con picadores has been so pitifully small that almost all toreros of that rank can be classified as losers, but there were a few who continued on an upwards trajectory, stating a claim for greater things in the future.

Francisco Montero headed the 2020 escalafón with five novilladas to his name and a tally of seven ears. The 28-year-old has come up the hard way, which has helped him face a range of bulls - his opponents included animals from Dolores Aguirre, Conde de la Corte, and Pedraza de Yeltes (from which he claimed an ear at Dax). He ended his temporada with a GR novillada at Herrera del Duque and, after an emotional second lidia incurring a cornada, became the afternoon’s triunfador with three ears to his name. He’ll be hoping for an alternativa in 2021 too.

The French novillero El Rafi was another youngster who could realistically have expected to become a matador in 2020 had the pandemic not happened. He donned a suit of lights on just four occasions, three of these in important French plazas (Nîmes, Dax and Istres) and the last in a GR novillada at Herrera del Duque, cutting ears on each occasion.

Salamanca’s two current hopes, Manuel Diosleguarde and Antonio Grande, continued to show promise locally. The former was given an opportunity away from Salamanca in one of the GR novilladas at Herrera del Duque, where he cut an ear from each of his El Pilar bulls.

Madrileño Rafael González was another youngster favoured by the GR organisers. He cut three ears from some fine Luis Algarra novillos to add to his earlier triumph at Torrijos (Toledo).

Finally, ejicano Jaime González-Écija is the coming man from Andalucía. He managed two appearances in Spain, as well as a couple in Mexico, to finish seventh in the former country’s escalafón after cutting ears at Antequera (Málaga) and Úbeda (Jaén).