‘Toros & Toreros’ Extra (1): Pedrito de Portugal

My new book, ‘Toros & Toreros/Toros y Toreros’ - due out next month - covers 65 toreros who have moved me in 50 years of attending bullfights. In choosing whom to feature, there were some close calls - toreros who’d impressed, but, for one reason or another, not sufficiently to be included in the book. There were also some toreros whose standing during the period I’ve covered might lead the aficionado to think they would automatically have an entry. I begin this series on people who do not feature in the book with a look at a ‘close call’, one of the most promising novilleros of the period - Pedro Alexander Anjos Roque Silva Pedrito de Portugal.

By the time of my first sighting of him, at Valencia’s 1993 Las Fallas, Roque Silva, just turned 18, was in his fifth season of appearing with bulls in public and his third as a novillero con picadores. He was already being eulogised in the pages of Aplausos, where one of their writers, Filiberto Mira, had come up with the apodo the long-named Portuguese was to retain throughout his career.

That first sighting was an impressive one. The capework to his first Mari Carmen Camacho novillo was breathtakingly close and slow, and the closeness was retained in the faena, begun with estatuarios and culminating in four or five series of muletazos all given from the same spot. Three pinchazos and a couple of descabellos lost him the two ears, although an ear did come his way later on when a single estocada ended his second faena.

I saw him again that summer at Cuéllar, facing Laurentino Carrascosa bulls alongside José Ignacio Sánchez and Javier Conde. Pedrito emerged as triunfador de la tarde with three ears to his name, the first two being the award for a magnificent faena of close series, with gentle toques of the muleta to force his animal to complete passes.

Four days later, Maurice and Jo Vickers and I came across Pedrito again after Maurice had flashed his CTL membership card and we were allowed entry to the sorteo at Medina del Campo. Dressed in a white shirt and grey shorts (and, we discovered when we spoke to him, reeking of garlic) Pedrito was getting an early viewing of the José Vázquez novillos he was to face later that day. Pedro cut an ear from his first, reluctant, bull, then performed excellently with his second, a slow mover that contributed to a templada faena of derechazos, naturales, pases de pecho, circulares and manoletinas, only to lose trophies with the sword.

Back at Las Fallas with juanpedros the next year, Pedrito was his usual confident self, his passes slow and fluid, but his swordwork again inconsistent. His lidia of his second novillo merited two ears; when the president stopped at one, the crowd encouraged the teenager to take no less than three vueltas, the novillero’s grin getting cheekier on each circuit of the ring. On San José’s day, a contingent of foreign afición went to Utiel to see Pedro and Vicente Barrera with Jaralta novillos and, with his one decent opponent, the Portuguese showed incredible temple with both cape and muleta, including a memorable cambio de mano pass begun as a derechazo and finished as a natural, a photo of which heads this piece. He and Barrera left the plaza on shoulders.

So far, so good. Pedrito took the alternativa during that year’s Feria de Badajoz, with Paco Ojeda as padrino and Finito de Córdoba as testigo. I was due to see him thrice that September, but his recovery from an injury reduced that to a single showing at Madridejos, where he failed to establish any rhythm with his first bull and faced an almost impossible second animal.

By now, Pedrito had lost a major influence on his career, his father, ex-banderillero Joaquim António Pereira da Silva, who acted as the novillero’s peón de confianza and mentor. Joaquim, the subject of a brindis to the skies on the day of Pedrito’s alternativa, was killed when the cuadrilla’s vehicle was involved in a road accident. I think his loss had a significant impact on Pedro’s toreo, the Portuguese appearing to lose his earlier confidence.

1995 saw his busiest European temporada (51 corridas), while he confirmed his alternativa in Las Ventas during the San Isidro feria of 1996, but he failed to secure successes in Spain when it really mattered and also suffered from the usual difficulties foreign toreros experience in gaining contracts there. Indeed, he was more successful in Latin America, where he won Quito’s ‘Jesús del Gran Poder’ trophy and Cali’s ‘El Señor de los Cristales’ award.

In 1995 and ‘96 at Santander, Pedrito produced some passes of note, particularly with the capote (he was criticised for his use of the pico in the muleta), only to lose awards with his swordwork. My last sighting of him was at Calatayud in 1997, when he came in as a substitute for Francisco Rivera Ordóñez alongside Joselito and Enrique Ponce, with bulls of Concha Navarro. After some superb capework from the Portuguese, his second bull just wanted to sit come the faena, but Pedrito did cut an ear from his first after a characteristic faena - a pase cambiado por la espalda to start with, followed by some fine series of derechazos and naturales and ending with neat circulares.

Despite being Portugal’s most successful matador after Victor Mendes, graced with a head and wrists that could produce the most beautiful, fluid toreo, all that early promise of Pedrito’s was never really fulfilled.