One of the more interesting carteles of a pretty lacklustre batch of early feria announcements is the April 27 novillada con picadores organised by the 3 Puyazos Club Taurino which will feature a desafío of bulls of Raso de Portillo and Isaías y Tulio Vázquez (the novilleros will be João d’Alva and Miguel Andrades). Mundotoro.com has no record of the latter ganadería appearing in a formal festejo since 2018, when the ranch supplied seven animals to three novilladas, the last being a desafío with novillos of Prieto de la Cal at Laguna de Duero. The last complete corrida of ‘tulios’ took place in Tolosa in 2006 with the matadors Iván Fandiño, Sánchez Vara and Iker Lara, Fandiño cutting an ear after a difficult afternoon for all three toreros, the animals displaying a lack of fixity on the cloth.

The tulios were nevertheless the toros of choice for aficionados in Madrid, the north of Spain and France in the 1940s and ‘50s. The ganadería was formed in 1939 when the Vázquez brothers bought Ibarra-Parladé stock from the herd of Antonio García Pedrajas. Their animals quickly established a strong reputation in the premier plazas. Two bulls were given vueltas en arrastre at Bilbao in 1946 and, two years later, the ranch’s debut in Las Ventas (a novillada) saw another animal given the same honour. In 1950, two novilleros were sent to the Las Ventas infirmary during a ferocious novillada in which the bull ‘Famoso’ took five varas and was awarded a vuelta en arrastre. ABC commented on the novillada: “In what year were we? The public, on their feet, applauded frenetically - an old emotion arose from the sand up to the gradas.”

For the tulios - spirited, mobile, powerful and frequently wide-horned - were always primarily animals that shone in the tercio de varas. They hardly ever appeared with figuras (although, interestingly, the toreros of the last century’s ‘corrida of the century’ - Francisco Ruiz Miguel, Luis Francisco Esplá and José Luis Palomar - took on tulios in Las Ventas the year after that victorinada). Prior to the picador, the bulls would tend to be disoriented, then, after las varas, they would usually carry their heads at mid-height and be quick to respond to cites, keeping the toreros on their toes.

The ganadería had status outside of Spain, too, primarily thanks to Angus Macnab, a British fascist politician who moved to Franco’s Spain after being imprisoned in Britain during the Second World War, and who, in his accomplished 1957 book The Bulls of Iberia (published as Fighting Bulls in the USA), declared “the bravest string I have seen […] a superb string of Tulio and Isaías Vázquez fought […] at Valdepeñas […] they were terrifying […] to me they looked like a cross between a racehorse and a rhinoceros […] Their speed was frightening, their power enormous.” This was a corrida, but Macnab also mentioned a 1951 novillada in Las Ventas: “The audience were standing up and cheering, the ring was full of hats and flowers, and a man was being carried round the ring on the shoulders of enthusiasts. His pockets were stuffed with cigars that he had picked up on a previous round - on foot, after the fifth of the six bulls had been fought. But the man was not a torero; he was the bull-breeders’ mayoral […] The breeders were Isaías and Tulio Vázquez, and they had sent such a string of animals as the real bull enthusiast dreams of.”

In truth, by the time Macnab’s book was published, the tulios were in decline. Isaías died in 1959, Tulio in 1965. That same year, the ganadería had its penultimate big success in Madrid - a festejo with six superb-looking bulls that took 25 varas in total, one animal being awarded a vuelta. In 1983, the ranch’s ‘Mandador’ was selected as the best bull of San Isidro.

Being a small ganadería, appearances of Isaías y Tulio Vázquez bulls are quite rare. Twelve years later, I began a September trip to Spain with a trainride from Madrid to Cercedilla specifically to see a corrida of tulios. The matadors were Tomás Campuzano, El Tato and the aragonés Ricardo Aguín El Molinero. The plaza was less than a quarter full. El Molinero (who, the previous month, had confirmed his alternativa in Madrid) drew the best bulls of the afternoon, but unfortunately could manage little with them, although he won a consoling ear. The other ear winner was El Tato after a strange faena to a bull with nobleza in which all the best muletazos happened after the band had stopped playing. Campuzano had a poor afternoon; after an uncontrolled suerte de varas with his second bull, and despite a brindis to the spectators, he opted for a faena de aliño before running in to kill the animal which was standing with its back towards him at the time! The string was impressively horned; the first was immobile in the faena; the second weak on its hind legs; but all six went eagerly to the horse and made for a fascinating corrida.

At the start of this century, the herd experienced significant health problems. Now owned by Isaías Váquez Quintanilla, grandson of the original Don Isaías, the ganadería introduced a semental of Yerbabuena (another pedrajas herd) to help avoid consanguinity. By 2019, the herd had five sementales in all and 80 cows, with selection still based primarily on behaviour with the horse, animals being chosen after taking 6-8 varas in all.

The 3 Puyazos’ feria promises to be an interesting affair. In addition to the novillada, there will be two corridas - a desafío of Palha and Conde de la Corte bulls for Sánchez Vara, Morenito de Aranda and Ángel Sánchez and a string of Dolores Aguirre for Sergio Serrano, Damián Castaño and Francisco Montero.