Those aficionados who look forward to new books on bullfighting have, in recent years (really, ever since the end of Espasa Calpe’s ‘La Tauromaquia’ series), got used to publications emanating from specialist or small press publications. José Ignacio Miguel del Corral is to be congratulated, then, for having his book on the corrida published by the mainstream imprint of Penguin Random House, no less.

The author was born in Salamanca in 1951 and has combined his work as a tax inspector with breeding Hispano-Arab horses and Morucha cattle on his ranch in Cáceres, while his uncles, Vidal and José García Tabernero Orive, own a herd of fighting bulls in Salamanca, Toros de Orive (ex-Salvador Domecq). Given this background, it is perhaps unsurprising that Miguel del Corral has chosen to write a new history of bullfighting that focuses on how toreros have influenced bull-breeding over the years in order to assist toreo’s evolution.

After setting out the beginnings of toreo, the author identifies Francisco Montes Paquiro (via his Tauromaquia, which was, it seems, actually written by Manuel Rancés Hidalgo, a doctor in the military) as the first matador to set out the various behaviours of the toro bravo and to state which were the most propitious for toreo, i.e. those that were ‘boyantes’ (clean charging) and ‘revoltosos’ (keen to attack the lure). Paquiro fought a variety of bulls, but Rafael Guerra Guerrita began to set a trend of figuras in requiring particular dates, cartel companions and ganaderías in his contractual arrangements with empresarios. His preferred ganaderías are identified as those of el duque de Veragua, the marqués de Saltillo, the widow of Murube and de la Cámara e Ybarra. Although Guerrita’s influence on the development of the toro bravo was limited, as the matador rarely took part in tentaderos, Miguel del Corral asserts his preferences did influence bulls’ morphology, which reduced in size, and lowered the age that they were sent to the bullrings. He also took a strong dislike to the fast-moving, frisky bulls of the casta navarra.

After identification of each stage in the development of the fighting bull, Miguel del Corral writes interestingly on the key ganaderías of that time, beginning with the historic herds of Veragua, Concha y Sierra, Miura, Murube, Ybarra, Saltillo, Pablo Romero and Santa Coloma. This ensures not only some useful contemporary context, but, where relevant, their stories are taken forward to more modern times.

The next key influential torero is José Gómez Joselito, who played a direct part in some ganaderos’ selection decisions and introduced the role of veedor. The efforts of both Belmonte and Joselito were focused on toreando more with the arms and wrists than with the legs, towards standing still in passes and taking the bull past (but not round) them, rather than expelling the animal off to the side. For this, they needed bulls that were focused on following the cloth and less inclined to hook.

Joselito’s preference was for bulls from the Vistahermosa bloodline, particularly murubes (whose future he preserved by persuading the banker José Manuel Urquijo to buy the herd) and bulls of Ybarra, Saltillo and Santa Coloma. He only ever fought nine casta navarra animals and, of the ganaderías around Colmenar Viejo and their toros de la tierra, he really only favoured that of Vicente Martínez, which by that time had introduced the ybarreños sementales of ‘Diano’ and ‘Dudoso’. Joselito persuaded the Miura family to acquire a ybarreño semental too. Although he continued to fight bulls from the Vázquez bloodline, José often found them disappointing in the faena de muleta.

Miguel del Corral then has a chapter on the Tamarón encaste, whose Ramón Mora Figueroa he identifies as the first ganadero to take into account the semental as well as the mother when selecting novillas at tentaderos. Joselito, aware of Mora Figueroa’s financial difficulties, had apparently expressed an interest in buying the Tamarón herd, but, following the matador’s death, the animals passed into the hands of Agustín de Mendoza, el conde de la Corte. Atanasio Fernández and Juan Pedro Domecq were among a number of ganaderos who were to turn to Conde de la Corte as a basis for their own herds.

In addition to Mora Figueroa himself, amongst those who don Agustín looked to to advise him in his new role as ganadero was Marcial Lalanda, who, together with Domingo Ortega, Miguel del Corral pinpoints as the next matador to substantially influence the evolution of the toro bravo. Both Lalanda and Ortega were ‘toreros largos’, technically proficient and able to understand and dominate the behaviour of a wide range of bulls. Both expressed concern at the tendency of many contemporary ganaderos to move away from breeding powerful, spirited, bulls keen to follow the cloth, returning to it without needing to be cited, in favour of descastado animals with less strength, halting in between passes, which were easier for the bulk of matadors to torear.

The impact of the Civil War, which effectively ended the existence of los toros de la tierra and did away with the herds of many ganaderías, and the eruption of Manolete, were to have major consequences for the corrida. This was also the period when the apoderado, in the form of Pepe Flores Camará, became an established figure in the mundillo. In addition to raising Manolete’s earnings from 12,000 pesetas per corrida in 1939 to 250,000 pesetas per festejo by 1947, Camará ensured that the empresas no longer had exclusive say on which bulls his charge should face.

Manolete wanted bulls that enabled him to link passes and Miguel del Corral makes the case that the Cordoban discovered his ideal charging animal not in Spain, but in Mexico. Antonio Llaguno, a biologist and ganadero based near Zacatecas, is identified as the key influence on the Mexican toro bravo, as it was he who, with the help of Bombita, in 1908 and 1911 brought Saltillo cattle over from Spain - an encaste that now forms the basis of virtually all of Mexico’s fighting bulls. Llaguno is portrayed as “the first ganadero bravo to use scientific and rational methods of selection”, crossing the saltillos with his indigenous cattle until 97% of his San Mateo animals’ genes were of Saltillo origin, rigorously selecting cows and sementales for breeding (focusing on maternal reatas as well as performance in tentaderos), taking care to avoid consanguinity or make use of it to establish positive characteristics, and then selecting animals that displayed long, rhythmic charges and fixity on the muleta in tentaderos as well as strong and keen charges to the tentador.

With Llaguno’s San Mateo bulls, Spanish matadors “discovered[…] the new bull with which they could link muletazos in toreo de reunión o en redondo”. Amongst these were Chicuelo (in advance of his famous Madrid faena with ‘Corchaíto’), Curro Puya, Cagancho, Victoriano de la Serna, Domingo Ortega and Manolete. Mexican ganaderías based on San Mateo stock have included those of Torrecilla, Javier Garfias, Reyes Huerta, Jorge Martínez, Pepe Chafik, Mimiahuapan and Alberto Bailleres (who also acquired Spain’s Zalduendo herd from Fernando Domecq in 2014).

Based on his Mexican experience, Manolete encouraged Spanish ganaderos to adopt Llaguno’s selection criteria and methods and produce bulls with keen, long and consistent charges, able to sustain lengthier faenas than had previously been the norm. Whilst the Cordoban continued to face the traditional ganaderías, he and Camará favoured the Murube-Ybarra bloodline, particularly bulls from Antonio Pérez y Montalvo, Murube-Urquijo, Conde de la Corte, Atanasio Fernández, Carlos Núñez, Juan Pedro Domecq and the Galache family. Francisco Galache commented later: “When selecting animals, the muleta is fundamental, as much as the horse, possibly more. It’s important that the vacas can sustain 200 muletazos - if they can manage 300, so much the better. In this view, I’ve been influenced very much by the vision of Manolete, who took part in tentaderos here every year […] He taught me that sometimes defects are discovered after you’ve already given 100 passes.”

That effectively defined the toro bravo for the next generation of toreros until the 1970s, when Miguel del Corral detects a new influence, not, this time, from matadors, but from critics such as Alfonso Navalón, Joaquín Vidal and Mariví Romero, who argued that the Fiesta had become prostituted by such as El Cordobés and Sebastián Palomo Linares and that the ganaderías favoured by the ‘figuritas’ no longer produced a bull of any substance, but instead an animal that was frequently under-age, carried shaved horns and whose natural ferocity was dimmed through deliberate breeding down and the application of drugs.

Miguel del Corral claims that Navalón looked for a ‘ganadero del pueblo’ he could project as a more honest breeder of bulls. Initially, the journalist looked to Salvador García Cebada, but decided he was too close to the Domecq family. Then Navalón favoured José Matías Bernardos, only for the ganadero to be warned off the relationship by Pedrés. Finally, it’s alleged, the critic settled on Victorino Martín Andrés.

In the subsequent chapter on these three ganaderos and Dionisio Rodríguez, the section on Victorino Martín stands out as being particularly odd. The ganadero is portrayed as operating hand-in-glove with Navalón, Vidal and others of a radical mindset, forging links with such as Andrés Vázquez and Ruiz Miguel, to break the established mould of bullfighting. There is little acknowledgement of the many outstanding bulls that ganadería has produced (nor the fact that their behaviour in the ring enabled Victorino to be treated as an exception to the ‘big bull’ culture that Navalón and his colleagues - aided and abetted by Tendido Siete and Madrid’s empresa, Manolo Chopera - gave rise to). Instead, Victorino padre is criticised for allowing his ganadería to grow too big and putting his cows in with more than one semental at a time, complicating lineages (a practice his son no longer follows).

With many of the existing features of bullfighting, including toreros and ganaderos, denigrated and the popularity for big, large-horned bulls taking hold, Miguel del Corral presents a ‘lost generation’ of under-valued toreros artistas - Manzanares padre, Curro Vázquez, Julio Robles and Roberto Domínguez. The next big influencer on toreo, Paco Ojeda, is portrayed as a torero corto who nevertheless established a style of ‘close toreo’, one particularly suited to the Domecq encaste, where fixity on the cloth and a near-static presence close to the matador is valued over and above a strong charge. The toro bravo might have become more impressive-looking and heavier, but at the cost of its mobility and aggression.

Miguel del Corral regards the last years of the 20th century as a time of decadence, not having much truck with Juan Pedro Domecq Solis’s concept of ‘toreabilidad’, adopted as doctrine by many breeders, but which he regards as one that swaps bravura for nobleza, losing bulls’ capacity for repetitious charges, instead obliging toreros to give toque after toque to incite a charge, and then only managing unipases. Enrique Ponce is regarded as the master of achieving results with such animals, although the author is no fan of the valenciano’s toreo. Nor is Ponce seen as a torero who has influenced the toro bravo we see today.

That role is restricted to José Tomás, with his championing of Núñez del Cuvillo bulls, and - to a larger extent - El Juli and his patronage of the Victoriano del Río, Domingo Hernández and Garcigrande brands. Miguel del Corral argues that these two matadors, with their classical forms of toreo, also returned a focus onto the fighting bull that was largely absent in the 1980s and ‘90s. Indeed, Núñez del Cuvillo was so associated with José Tomás that, when the madrileño retired in 2002, it took three seasons before the ganadería could enjoy sales of corridas featuring other figuras. El Juli has been a regular participant in tentaderos at ‘Garcigrande’, and, although the decisions about which animals to keep and which to reject are taken by the ganadero, Justo Hernández recognises that his and the matador’s views are very similar - both are looking for animals that display a clean, forceful and long-lasting charge and that lower their heads in the muleta.

After pointing to the career of Diego Urdiales as an example of how the organisation of bullfighting today is not fit for purpose, Miguel del Corral speculates as to where the toro de lidia is headed. His projection is rather a gloomy one. He reckons that minority encastes (i.e. encastes other than Domecq or Saltillo-Albaserrada, or Murube in rejoneo) that fail to gain a foothold in either France or Northern Spain will gradually disappear, and expresses concern that ganaderos such as Juan Pedro Domecq and Victoriano del Río have departed from the classical understanding of bravura to the extent of not selecting (either for corridas or as sementales) animals that display a lot of casta. Certainly, the battle between bravura and toreabilidad is not yet over, his concern being that, once a ganadería has lost its casta, it is very hard to restore it.

I was concerned when, early on in the book, Miguel del Corral tells us that Joselito was killed by the bull ‘Islero’, but this is an isolated example of brain-fade and not at all typical of what is an interesting, informed, informative and highly readable history of bullfighting. Miguel del Corral’s frequently-voiced political views are more of an irritant, being largely irrelevant to the story he is telling except, perhaps, in the years after Franco’s death when the new wave of bullfight critics were keen to decry the Fiesta Nacional the dictatorship had bequeathed them. He does, though, have an excellent eye for a quote, and De la Bravura al Toreo contains numerous interesting remarks from the toreros and ganaderos who have been key in the bullfight’s development that give pause for thought.

De la Bravura al Toreo (deliberately, I suspect, titled in contrast to Juan Pedro Domecq Solis’s book De Toreo a la Bravura) is available from Amazon in both paperback and Kindle formats.

A New History of Bullfighting

Afeitado

Not radical enough