San Isidro, May 17: Another cold Monumental evening
Diego García’s brindis of his second novillo to his grandfather
The wind that has plagued this first week of the feria was today stronger than ever. In the tendidos, despite the cloudless blue sky, it felt like a cold March corrida in Valencia. For the novilleros, it meant an additional hazard to contend with. And it was hard to obtain a true understanding of the novillos’ qualities as faenas would invariably be conducted towards the more sheltered edges of the arena where the animals were naturally inclined to defensiveness.
I had been looking forward to this novillada, which was due to feature the Madrid debuts of Cristian Parejo (from Chiclana, but based in France, where I’ve seen him perform very well on a number of occasions) and Marcos Linares, who impressed me so strongly at Calasparra last September. The third participant was Diego García, who topped the novillero escalafón last season. Unfortunately, Linares received a cornada grave a few days beforehand whilst winning the Andalucian Novillada Circuit competition. He was substituted by Mario Navas, from Valladolid.
In hindsight, to begin the proceedings, Diego García drew the least challenging Los Maños novillo - a pretty, short-horned, negro salpicado clearly reflecting its santacoloma origins, which ran eagerly to the horse. García produced some promising verónicas and Cristian Parejo a quite of tafalleras and a revolera, enticing García to respond with further verónicas and a larga.
The tall García opted to conduct the faena in front of 7, who provided him with lots of verbal advice! Diego managed some reasonable derechazos, but could achieve nothing on the left horn and did little turning of his bull. The animal grew more and more distracted and unpredictable in its charge, and Diego ended with an aviso, two pinchazos, a good estocada and three descabellos. There was applause en arrastre while García received silence: one felt he should have done better.
His second novillo provided no opportunity for success. The only respectable capework came from Parejo in a quite of chicuelinas, which neither García nor his cuadrilla were keen for the chiclanero to take. After a chaotic tercio de banderillas, García obtained one or two series of linked derechazos, but was disarmed when he moved the cloth to the left hand. Fundamentally, this manso bull did not want to engage, seeking the barrera. It was felled through a combination of an awful crosswise estocada, three pinchazos and a lot of turning by the cuadrilla’s capes: an aviso sounded, then there was silence for man and bull.
Cristian Parejo, after providing some fine half-kneeling verónicas, then delantales and a dedication to the public, was lucky to escape a cogida in his initial faena series of estatuarios with nothing more than a scratch to his right leg. This Los Maños novillo cut in on its right horn and its perpetual seeking for the man, charging with its head high, together with Parejo’s unfamiliarity with Las Ventas and where best to avoid the wind and his determination to bring something off, meant a scary faena, with much involuntary flinching from this onlooker. Eventually, his cuadrilla got the youngster to move across to 5, where conditions were somewhat better, Parejo managing some good extended and curving muletazos despite the circumstances. Four pinchazos and an estocada brought two avisos, a division of opinions over the novillo’s qualities and silence for the novillero.
With his second animal, Cristian received the only ovación y saludos of the day. A lovely, abrupt, feet-together media verónica to a hard-charging novillo was the highlight of his capework. Curro Javier took saludos for his banderillas for the second time this feria. Parejo placed the faena en tablas in front of 5 and, with another novillo unwilling to lower its head, produced some fine linked series of derechazos, and some naturales as well, ended with statuesque pases de pecho. The boy’s liking for pases por alto mirando al público still remains. An ear would have been his but for a pinchazo, estocada and several attempts to descabellar. All in all, the commentators reckoned this had been a strong debut in the circumstances. Parejo himself commented, “Hopefully, Madrid will be able to see me again with a good novillo one day.” As the youngster’s alternativa has already been set for Béziers on August 12, I suspect his next Las Ventas appearance will be with toros.
Certainly, Mario Navas’s first Los Maños novillo could have been passed off as a toro bravo in some bullrings. He gave it some half-kneeling passes, survived a warning, then lost his capote to the animal and ran… The novillo took three puyazos, the second from the sobrero picador. The peón who made no attempt to stop this from happening, Julio López, appeared terrified of the bull, keeping his distance from it as much as possible throughout the opening tercios. In fact, Navas did well to control the animal with his muleta and get some passes out of it. Two pinchazos, an estocada and aviso led to silence for both the faena’s participants.
Navas greeted his last lovely-looking novillo with some well-judged delantales, moving out towards the ring’s centre. Then, in a media verónica, the bull turned and caught him, throwing him up in the air and ripping his taleguilla. Mario crashed to the ground, breaking - it was announced later - his collarbone. His cuadrilla continued the initial tercios without him, but their jefe reappeared, his traje copiously bandaged, for a faena de aliño, finishing with a pinchazo, a decent estocada and eight descabellos before the novillo decided to sit on its own account. Navas received silence then walked out of the plaza with his colleagues, in his case towards the infirmary.