Translating the Corrida de

Toros: Bull Culture in 21st

Century Europe With thanks to The Peter Kirk European Travel

Scholarship

Bill Webb

1

Málaga: Introduction, anti-taurinos, or pro-abolitionists 2

Seville: Modernity and tradition 8

Madrid: School of toreros; Madrid in August 11

Salamanca and Laguna de Duero: To kill receiving; the horseback corrida 15

Barcelona: The patchwork bull-hide 18

San Sebastián de los Reyes: Bulls in the street 21

Arles: The international corrida ; conclusion 24

Acknowledgements 28

Works referenced 29

TRANSLATING THE CORRIDA DE TOROS: BULL CULTURE IN 21ST CENTURY EUROPE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

2

Málaga

Introduction; anti-taurinos, or pro-abolitionists

The crowd watched the bull in silence and the bull watched the cape, entranced. He did not appear to notice the

matador1*

standing between him and his target just inches away from his horns. They moved from left to right,

following the red cape, or muleta, which the matador - Julian López Escobar ‘El Juli’ - slowly swung from side

to side behind his back, but the 601 kg bull did not move. I had seen this animal enter the ring barely ten

minutes before, I had seen him charge furiously at any sign of movement from the large, pink capotes, the

heavier capes used to receive the bull in the first third of the sacrifice and I had heard him snort as he galloped,

carrying his half-ton frame with ease, past our seats in the sun. But now El Juli held him hypnotised. He had

succeeded in convincing the bull that the only other living creature on the sand was the red cloth. He held out

his arm and shook; summoning the bull for another series of passes, bending the mass of muscle around his

waist and drawing him in so close that he left streaks of blood on his suit of lights. It was only then, as the

second bull of the afternoon was prepared for death under the relentless Malagueñan sun, that I began to see

why so many people speak and write of the bulls in the language of tragedy; this brute force of nature had been

dominated, whilst retaining his dignity, by intelligence and skill, because the man had exploited his sole ‘flaw’:

his instinct.

I am in Málaga during their week long August festival to discover more about this world. It is the first leg of a

trip across Spain and France to find out what place this spectacle and other taurine events occupy in modern

Europe and whether there is a future for them on a continent growing ever more homogenised, sanitised and, on

the surface at least, animal-friendly. Like most British people, I had been brought up to see the corrida as the

dark side of Spain; a savage blood-sport to be looked down on whilst I holidayed on the white-washed fringes of

the nation.

To the despair of many English and American aficionados, my curiosity was first piqued by the words of Ernest

Hemingway, but since first reading The Dangerous Summer, I have discovered an array of other writers,

Hispanophone and Anglophone, who exalt the killing of bulls as beautiful, cathartic theatre. One of the first

things I learned was that there has never been a bullfight in Spain: they will run (correr2*

) or struggle against

(lidiar3*

) a bull, but never fight him - fading posters hung in bullring museums announce that on a given date six

bulls ‘will be pic-ed (a horseman pricks the bull with a lance), will be darted (thin, colourful sticks with a small

hook on one end, called banderillas [literally ‘little flags’], are placed two at a time into the bull’s back from

the front) and will then be put to death by the sword – a curved blade to better penetrate the animal. The corrida

is evidently not a competition; it is a scripted ritual, and tragedy certainly seems an apt title, as when the

struggle begins on the hot sand, everybody but the hero already knows the outcome.

There are six bulls in a corrida. After the parade, the first bull is announced. A sign carried to the centre of the

ring lists his name, the farm from which he came, his weight and his date of birth. The sign holder leaves and

the door is opened. The bull enters. He is encouraged to charge the pink capes offered from behind the wooden

panels placed around the ring whilst the toreros observe how he carries himself and how he runs. The picadors

ride in on their padded horses and one will call the bull to charge. They must wait outside the larger of the two

circles drawn into the sand. He charges the horse and, on contact, the man places the pic just behind the large

crest of muscle on his back. The toreros then lead the bull away from the horse. The amount of pics a picador

will give depends on the strength of the bull, but it usually between one and three. The horses leave as the bull is

occupied with the pink capes and then the banderillas are placed. These are inserted two at a time in a variety of

1* The matador is the man who kills the bull. A torero is any man on the sand involved in working the bull. 2*

From which we get corrida de toros, which literally means ‘running of bulls’ (i.e. making them pursue the cape). Not to

be confused with the English term ‘bull-run’, which the Spanish call an encierro; an ‘enclosure’ or, more loosely, ‘herding’

of bulls. 3* Although in many contexts lidiar can be translated as ‘to fight’, it comes from the Latin litigare, which means ‘to dispute’: it does not always have the violence of ‘to fight’ and so I do not think that it is an appropriate translation here. Sports such as

cock-fighting are translated with the verb pelear, and a pelea de toros (lit. fight of bulls) can only be used to express a fight

between two bulls.

3

The matadors step onto the sand at my first ever

corrida in Málaga. From left to right: Juan José

Padilla, Alejandro Talavante, Julian López Escobar

'El Juli'. Note the Jolly Roger hanging over the

barrier: this is in tribute to Padilla, who lost an eye in

a horrific goring in 2011. After his second bull the

flag is thrown onto the sand, along with hats and

wineskins, and he carries it, along with his young

daughter, on a lap of honour. 21/08/2013

ways, with nothing between the man and the bull. There

will usually be three pairs placed. The matador then begins

the ‘third of death’, using the red cape. He lowers the bull’s

head and then, when both are ready, kills.

Whether the corrida provided the catharsis and the

profound pleasure of which I had read, only a subjective

viewing could possibly determine. I had been told that the

beauty of a good corrida served as ample justification for

the suffering caused to the animal and truly was ‘to die for’.

After the afternoon’s first bull, which had been ‘tame’,

refusing to charge and seeking an exit, I would have said

that this is not true. After the second; perhaps. The

following four bulls did not provide the clarification I had

hoped would come after the first corrida: I was no more

certain of whether or not I would develop affection for the

spectacle as I left the arena, but I was now sure that it was

something I truly wanted to investigate and I will try to

render into English what I find in this seemingly alien

universe as best I can.

A handful of the Club Taurino of London’s (CTL) 350 members are in Málaga for this feria. Such organisations

exist all over the world, gathering in their own countries to discuss goings on in the world of the bulls. They

host talks, create publications and meet to watch corridas. Thanks to the internet, they can now do this even

when far from the seven countries in which they are still celebrated4*

, although many, including the President of

the Club Taurino of New York, fail to see the appeal in this; Lore Monnig told me, ‘it’s like ballet; they’ve tried

films, TV, but it just doesn’t transmit.’ At this

single event I met British, German, Dutch and

Argentinean aficionados, all of whom flock to

Spain every year for one reason. We discuss my

research on the bar’s terrace after the corrida. Most

of them have been coming to Spain for many years

and point out technical subtleties I had not been

able to notice. This report will perhaps be of little

benefit to them on this level, as their knowledge far

outweighs mine. This is not intended to be an

explanation of the corrida; there would be little

point in me writing one. It is an explanation of my

introduction to it. Everything I have read on the

subject until now has been written by authors

whose views on the issue are already, entirely or

partly, decided and who thus tailor information for

their own ends. I hope my end will be tailored by

what I find and that I am able to guide those who,

like me, are unsure but open by sketching this world

as it appears. Those who already have some

knowledge of the tradition will possibly find my

work, if not informative on a technical level,

interesting on a personal one as I recount my first,

naive steps into the corrida.

4* These are: Spain, France, Portugal (where the animal is not killed in the ring, but later in a slaughterhouse), México,

Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela. Ecuador and Panamá have recently banned Spanish style corridas.

El Juli passing his first bull with the muleta in Málaga. This is

the final third of the ritual; ‘the third of death’ and El Juli is

trying to lower the animal’s head to prepare him for this. I

recall that this bull died much more quickly than Padilla’s

first. I also recall being surprised when, as soon as the animal

was dead, the vendors immediately struck up again in the

stands. 21/08/13

4

The CTL members are encouraging and keen to know about my interest in the bulls, but I let them do most of

the talking: this was the first time I had seen something die and it had left a strange taste in my mouth. These

people are beyond that now, having made their arguments and defences so many times and having seen the

corrida which washes all of the bad ones away. But before I leave, one of the club’s older members offers me a

warning, “I can probably count the number of good ferias I have been to on one hand; if you are going to follow

the bulls, you must learn to be a masochist”. I laugh and am suddenly reminded of the interview I had conducted

the day before with Antonio Moreno, President of the Andalucian Collective against the Mistreatment of

Animals (CACMA: Colectivo Andaluz Contra el Maltrato Animal in Spanish): he sees only sadism in the

bullring.

Although I had understood little of what I had seen and still had very confused feelings about it, having felt both

the potential for great beauty and also the guilt of the price paid for it, what I did know was that I didn’t agree

with Antonio about the corrida’s ‘sadism’. The murmurs of pleasure I had felt came not from watching the

animal suffer, but from how he seemed to shrug it off; the bulls were beautiful creatures, powerful and elegant

with their tight, sleek coats, and the matadors did not humiliate them as I had been told they would; with the

capes they transcended themselves and the beasts; emphasising the power and bravery of them both. The

audience showed respect, admiration and almost reverence towards the bulls. It is when Othello is punished the

most that he is most captivating. As Spanish dramatist Ramón del Valle-Inclán once argued, one’s love for the

hero – actor or bull – is increased, or even created, by surrounding him with threats and danger5.

Had I followed the advice of international pressure groups working to ban the corrida, I would have had a very

mistaken image of what a corrida really was. As not to financially support the industry, most dissuade the

tourist from judging with their own eyes and instead offer a series of photographs, along with descriptions of

what happens to the bull in the ring. Had I not seen El Juli, Juan José Padilla and Alejandro Talavante each face

5 Valle-Inclán, RM del, ‘Cartas a un amigo de Provincias’ (1905), Salmonetes ya no nos quedan, Quintano, IR, 28.04.2011

Web. (accessed 25.10.13)

Graffiti on a building in Madrid’s University district reads ‘Tauromaquia es sadismo’: ‘Bullfighting is sadism’. All

across Spain I see the slogan ‘ni arte ni cultura’ written on buildings; it means ‘[bullfighting is] neither art nor

culture’. 23/08/13

5

two bulls before me, I would have had thought the corrida glorified butchery. Both the photographs and

descriptions on many of these sites are often, I have seen first-hand, equally misleading. The camera does not

lie, but can be sparing with the truth. Having only just begun to truly question my relationship with animals, I

was just as likely to turn vegetarian as I was aficionado in Málaga, but I felt deceived by the sites I had

consulted before my arrival. They had called for the abolition of the corrida, but did not seem to know what it

was, or worse, they did know, and presented it thus regardless; greatly exaggerating the violence of the bull’s

treatment before and during the event, which I shall discuss in more detail later, and conflating into one

abhorrent unit separate bull spectacles and games, which I would later discover are entirely unrelated. I was

therefore very fortunate to meet somebody like Antonio, who is an anomaly in this world, being one of the very

few members of his organisation to have been to a corrida, let alone more than one.

Over coffee we discuss his work as a ‘pro-abolitionist’ (he corrects me when I say ‘anti-taurino6*

). For him, it

began one day in 1995; until then he had been an aficionado, attending corridas all over Spain and, because of

his father’s contacts, visiting famous bull farms and dining with toreros. But on this day, as the picador fixed his

lance in the charging bull, he decided he had seen enough, stood up and left. He realised that he had never been

an aficionado who admired the skill and art of the torero, but one of those who, he claims, make up the majority

of the audience; idle fans there through habit and tradition, simply because it is fiesta time.

He believes knowledgeable aficionados are few and far between and many go in hope of a goring, out of mere

bloodlust; citing the fact that almost all aficionados have rejected a bloodless form of the corrida which has

recently been developed. In a bloodless corrida, the picador’s lance is tipped with red paint rather than a blade,

the banderillas are attached with Velcro to a belt around the bull’s body, and the sword slips harmlessly into a

pocket rather than between the ribs. Toreros and aficionados readily admit that the corrida would be nothing

without the supreme sacrifice; matador Francisco Rivera Ordoñez saying in an interview, ‘I don’t understand the

bullfight with no kill for the bull’7, but for them, they insist, this is not because they want to see blood and

violence, but instead because the corrida without death becomes mere spectacle. In Málaga, those there for

fiesta drink in the streets and stay away from the bullring, whilst the audience at the arena are knowledgeable;

they are quick to whistle and criticise an overzealous picador, who nearly ‘ruins’ one of the bulls8*

, and they

request trophies only when deserved; only when a kill has been clean and effective. For, if a matador has

performed well, the audience can implore the president to award him with either one ear, two ears, or both ears

and the tail from the dead bull in recognition of his work. The request is made by waving white handkerchiefs

towards the President’s box. It is said that an ear awarded in Málaga is an ear awarded by law. Whilst for

Antonio the thirds of the corrida are humiliating the bull, torturing him, and then murdering him, for taurinos,

the bull is hero, not enemy. As Salvador Dalí said, ‘the bull is a Spanish god who sacrifices himself, the toreros

are only his priests.’9

But for abolitionists, how the bull is seen by his killers is irrelevant; CACMA do not fight against the corrida

because they believe it morally corrosive, they fight for the animals. This is the reason that they have now

abandoned marches and protests for educational campaigns and demonstrations in city centres. Some radical

organisations protest outside rings, some even invade them during corridas and many international taurinos

have reported receiving death threats, but Antonio sees little point in antagonising the aficionado who already

knows where he stands on the issue. Having received a number of threats himself after speaking in Catalan

parliament shortly before the region became the first in mainland Spain to ban the corrida, Antonio implores

respect above all. ‘They are nothing more than cowards,’ he tells me as he lights another cigarette. CACMA

want to change the law and the mind of the citizen in the street. To do this they petition councils, publicly

denounce specific cases of animal abuse and educate the non-aficionado about the ‘truth’ of the corrida by

6* The Royal Spanish Academy defines a ‘taurino’ as an ‘aficionado of bulls’. An aficionado is one who feels afición

towards something, which translates as ‘love’ or ‘affection’. 7 Tosko, C The bull and the Ban (ebook: Suerte Publishing, 2012) loc. 1441 8* The function of the pic is to start to bleed the bull; giving him a slower, calmer charge, but without taking away too much of his strength. A poorly placed or prolonged pic will cause unnecessary damage to a bull and make him liable to tire

prematurely. 9 Tynan, K Bull Fever (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1955) p.165

6

carrying out public performances, which involve protesters lying in the street covered in red paint with

banderillas stuck to their backs.

Most of the activists are vegetarian or vegan and so for them, this is the truth of the corrida: they see no

difference between killing an animal and a human, but for the majority of society, this is not the case. Only 2%

of British people are vegetarian and the ratio of vegetarians to meat eaters in Spain is believed to be even

lower10

. The public evidently does not judge human and animal suffering to be equal, and so to present the

corrida as synonymous with the torture of humans seems grossly unfair, particularly when the majority of

people targeted by such campaigns will doubtlessly be meat eaters. Both within Spain and abroad, those

complicit in the meat industry are convinced that their vice is insignificant compared to the bulls. Despite his

knowledge of the corrida, Antonio’s site is as guilty of making highly spurious claims about the treatment of the

bull before and during his sacrifice as many of the others. These claims have been laughed off by the bull-

raising industry, and some of them, I, with no first-hand experience and just a little research, am certain are not

true; such as the accusation that a bull will be blinded before he faces the torero by having Vaseline rubbed into

his eyes. The torero’s only protection comes from knowing that the bull will charge the cape and not him and,

as the bull charges at movement and not colour, to blind him would be highly counter-productive. According to

a range of sites dedicated to abolishing the tradition, the animal has already been virtually destroyed by the time

he enters the ring; lowered by having bags of sand dropped onto his back and disorientated by a series of other

punishments. However, as all bulls must, by Spanish law, be inspected by a veterinary surgeon before they are

allowed into the ring, and thousands of euros have gone into creating an animal which is judged, above all, on

its nobility, (and will sometimes be rejected from a ring for lack of it) I am, by the time I meet Antonio, slightly

dubious of the validity of these claims and even more so now I have seen corridas. However, I have also seen

that the illegal practice of horn-shaving, although much less common than it once was, still exists. To every

fan’s shame, some bulls have their horns blunted before being sent out to the ring. There has been a long battle

against this and it virtually never occurs at respected arenas nowadays, but cases in minor venues make for

strong ammunition for abolitionists who claim that the practice unbalances and disorientates the animal, like

cutting the whiskers of a cat. From what I have seen in a small town where the horns of all six bulls were almost

certainly shaved, the animals’ charges were normal and accurate; lacking merely the tearing power of intact

horns and naturally this view is supported by those defending the corrida. This makes the crime no less

reprehensible, but perhaps illustrates the way in which the industry’s failings can be and are exploited.

As the British torero Alexander Fiske-Harrison said to me when we met in London, ‘are the pics and the

banderillas not enough?’ Perhaps they are not. What detractors have wisely tried to do is attack the one aspect

of the corrida which cannot be denied; its reality. The corrida is the only spectacle which offers at once a

dramatic representation of death (and, of course, life) along with the real thing. Of the corridas I have since seen

across Spain, what has most taken my breath has been the power of the bulls, who are physically able to kill the

man at any moment. Those who face them, whether or not they are doing something moral or immoral, truly are

endangering their lives for their craft. But by removing the corrida’s most redeeming feature, its brutal honesty,

and painting a picture of deceit and horrific, hidden torture, it becomes simply the representation of risk. In this

light, the meat industry becomes almost saintly, despite the fact that animals used solely for meat (fighting cattle

are sold for meat afterwards) often have a much less pleasant life and death.

Although animals must be stunned before slaughter, as of 2003, 0.8% of UK cattle were killed without any form

of stunning11

. 0.8% represents approximately 7,200,000 animals, and this number is believed to have gone up

rather than down since then. Exceptions to stunning laws are made for both religious and economic reasons.

Investigations also continue to show that a great deal of animals in the UK are insufficiently stunned, leaving

them conscious at the point of slaughter. Meanwhile, when challenged on the suffering caused to the bull, which

Antonio tells me is unbearable, defenders of the corrida often point to the animal’s behaviour in the act of

10 ‘Fact Sheets: Number of UK Vegetarians’. Vegetarian Society, The Vegetarian Society of the United Kingdom Limited,

n.d. Web. (accessed 11.09.13) 11 ‘Study on the stunning/killing practices in slaughterhouses and their economic, social and environmental consequences’

European Commission Directorate General for Health and Consumer Protection, European Commission, 2007 Web.

(accessed 11.09.13)

7

lances. Despite the pic, which can penetrate up to 8 cm, placed just behind the crest of muscle on the bull’s

back, he does not recoil. He will continue to charge against the horse and will often return to it several times,

bringing more punishment, which he seems to ignore; a cross on the lance prevents the bull from killing itself. It

cannot be known for certain whether the bull is intelligent enough to link the satisfaction of charging with the

pain brought by the pic, but it is clear that he is focused on only one thing when his horns are driving against the

horse’s Kevlar-clad flank. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the true ‘brave’ bull, which is what all

breeders try to create, suffers much less in the ring than his distant cousins do in the slaughterhouse due to the

hormones released by charging. In the abattoir, fear is rife and animals tend to undergo high levels of stress as

they are herded, but the corrida plays to the bull’s nature: according to an extensive study by the vet Juan Carlos

Illera del Portal of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, a fighting bull’s stress levels are up to three times

higher during transportation to the ring than they are during the corrida itself. Through charging, the bull will

release an extraordinary amount of beta-endorphins; these are satisfying hormones which cancel out much of the

pain which would otherwise be caused by the pic and the banderillas – similar to how one will often not feel a

wound until after a trauma when one has calmed and one’s hormone levels have returned to normal.

Antonio doesn’t believe this is the case, but he does accept that, in terms of suffering, the Portuguese corrida is

much worse than the Spanish tradition. In the Portuguese style, the bull is not allowed to be killed in the ring,

but he does receive wounds from horsemen and has banderillas placed. After he has been worked on the sand,

he is led away by steers. But a bull cannot legally enter a ring more than once and so must go to the

slaughterhouse. This gives him plenty of time for adrenaline levels to return to normal and for sensations of pain

to mount, “if the corrida takes place on

Saturday, many slaughterhouses don’t open

until Monday…” he leaves me to imagine

the rest.

That is the danger of a ban based on

sensibilities rather than animal rights. I

respect Antonio because he is consistent in

his beliefs and actions (he proudly shows me

his non-leather wallet, belt and shoes), but

people like him make up a tiny minority of

those who have declared themselves in one

way or another against the fiesta. Despite the

evidence proving fighting bulls more often

than not suffer less than meat cattle, it is still

despised and demonised: because it is

grotesque, because it is vulgar, because the

red of the blood strikes such a contrast with

the bull’s flank on a video watched far from

the sunny plaza. Misguided good-will will

produce flawed results and many argue that

were the corrida to be banned now and

fighting cattle raisers forced to convert into

meat farmers, animal welfare would actually

worsen in the country. We cannot, of course,

justify the corrida as ‘right’ by citing a

greater ‘wrong’ in the world, but it does

allow us to contextualise it and de-

polemicize it, which will subsequently

permit us to see it for what it objectively is

rather than what it is often rashly made out

to be.

The bull continues to drive into the horse despite the pic at the

Goyesque corrida in Arles, France. I saw the horses being unloaded

and dressed before the final corrida of the festival which took place the

following day. They seemed calm and healthy. These horses wear

Kevlar suits which the bull’s horns cannot penetrate, but until 1930

they were not protected and were frequently disembowelled. 07/09/2013

8

Sevilla

Tradition and Modernity

In Espartinas, a small town to the West of Seville, I meet Rafael Peralta Revuelta. He is the son of Rafael

Peralta Pineda who, with his brother, runs the celebrated ‘Rancho de Rocío’, where bulls and horses destined for

the plaza are raised. The family are legendary in the world of rejoneo -the corrida on horseback- the brothers

headlining together at Spain’s biggest rings throughout the 20th century. Rafael is a lawyer, poet, and horseman.

Having grown up surrounded by the animals at the ranch in the heart of the Doñana nature reserve, a green

counterpoint to Andalusia’s arid yellow, the bulls truly are in his blood. But he is at the forefront of a project to

marry centuries-old tradition with modernity and innovation in order to bring the corrida into the 21st century.

Here in Espartinas, Rafael, along with Eduardo Dávila Miura, (on whose family’s notorious ranch the biggest

and most dangerous bulls have been bred since the mid-19th century) is running the latest in a series of courses

teaching fans of the corrida how to torear12*

themselves.

In recent years the industry has opened up in a way it had never done before. Perhaps this is a result of

dwindling ticket sales or the perceived threat to its future from ever-growing pressure groups; either way, one no

longer needs to have family or friends in the business to, as the motto of Rafael’s group, the Club Aficionados

Prácticos Taurinos, says, ‘dare to feel the magic of toreo’. Whilst Rafael tells me about his farm in the alleyway

around the ring, some twenty or thirty aficionados practise their passes and their banderilla work before us with

varying levels of skill and grace, churning the sand up into a thick cloud. They are preparing for their upcoming

(bloodless) date with a live animal on the weekend at the farm of Morante de la Puebla, who is one of Spain’s

greatest working matadors. There seems to be no atmosphere of snobbery from taurine dynasties and legends

towards those trying to enter the world; it is the biggest names in the business that are supporting this drive to

open up the once inwards industry, with an impressive list of first category matadors offering their private

training rings to the group. Rafael believes there is a ‘school of valours’ behind toreo and that is ultimately what

their program seeks to share. They do not train these people to a professional level, but rather want to allow fans

to practise toreo as a hobby. ‘It will be like golf’, Rafael says, ‘maybe we will begin to run competitions.’ Given

that there is also an increasing demand for these courses from corporations as team-building exercises, one can

assume that the danger of this form of toreo is somewhat reduced, but far from stripping the corrida of its title

of ‘the last serious thing’ (as Federico García Lorca said), Rafael and his organisation think that this form of

instruction will educate the

aficionado to better appreciate

the severity of what happens

within the ring; expanding the

core of knowledgeable,

committed fans as to steady

attendance levels which,

during years of greater

economic prosperity, were at

the whim of fashion and trend.

Now the corrida is, without

doubt, at the mercy of the

economy. With the number of

bull-related events plummeting

over recent years, (the number

of all festivals fell 37%

12 Torear is the verb used to describe everything done to by the toreros; it means, in its broadest sense, to work a bull. The

noun is toreo. I will leave these in Spanish herein to avoid the loaded and loathsome ‘bullfight’.

Matador Antonio Ferrera places his own banderillas in Salamanca. Nowadays, this

tends to be done by a specialist ‘banderillero’, who is employed by the matador. I sat

in the sun for this corrida; an elderly man beside me told me to the minute when the

shade would arrive. 14/09/13

9

between 2007 and 201113

) the farms which sprung up during the construction boom can now sell their bulls for

just a fraction of their former price. Despite the decreasing number of events, there are more ranches producing

fighting bulls now than ever before, and so only the most renowned are able to sell their animals for anywhere

near €6000, which Rafael tells me was the average rate before the crisis. They might receive a better price if

they sell them to a town for a ‘bull-in-the-street’ festival (this was once considered shameful, but pride has been

swallowed in the crisis) as the purchase of creatures for such events is often made by a group of aficionados

who each contribute a small amount, but if they sell to a plaza they will likely get little more than €3000. Some

have even resorted to selling cattle directly to slaughterhouses.

Those which are condemned to the abattoir will doubtless, however, have had a finer life than the other animals

they meet there. Life on bull farms has hardly changed in the past one hundred years. The Peralta bulls, who go

only to the plaza, are free to roam across the plains for four years, testing their horns on one another, growing

and grazing far from the touch of humans. The only contact they will have with man is at their ‘testing’. When

he is two years old, a calf will face a smaller version of the pic and the farmer, observing how he charges the

horse and how he responds to the lance, will decide whether he is fit for the ring or whether he is to be used for

beef (if defects are minor, he may be kept to be killed

at the age of three as a novillo by apprentice

matadors). The females will be caped to decide

whether they are suitable for breeding, but, as Spanish

law does not allow a bull to be worked with a cape

more than once in his life due to the speed at which

he learns where his real opponent is, this does not

happen to the males.

Rafael explains to me how the calf’s life will then

progress. If he passes the test, he will live in the fields

for two more years until he is ready for the ring. The

organiser of a corrida will approach the farmer and

ask him for a number of bulls for an upcoming event.

He will set a number aside and the matadors who

have agreed with the organiser to appear at the ring

will have them inspected by their observers, who will

decide if any are not acceptable for their master to

face. The bulls will be accompanied to the ring by

either the farm owner or his head pastor where, before

entering the ring, they will be judged on their bearing

and a vet will examine them; ensuring that they have

not been mistreated and that their horns are intact.

If a bull’s horns are damaged or split (this can happen

on the farm or during transit), he should be rejected by

the vet and replaced with another bull, at a huge cost

to the farmer. As such, many newer farms will apply

what are known as fundas to their bulls. These are covers wrapped around the horns to protect them and they are

one of the most controversial topics in the industry today. They serve to simultaneously reduce the chances of

horns splitting and the risk of fatal injuries as bulls fight one another on the farm, but many argue that they

affect the growth of the horn, or if applied when already fully grown, change the size and shape of the bull’s

defences, so that when they are removed his charge is off and he is unable to use them correctly. Traditionalists

believe that fighting bulls, ideally, should be treated as wild and not farm animals. The Peraltas are of this

school; although Rafael is not sure whether the funda really does change the bull’s charge, his, along with most

13 Cerrillo, A. ‘El número de corridas en España descendió un 41% del 2007 al 2011’ La Vanguardia, La Vanguardia,

10.02.13 Web. (accessed 13.09.13)

A three-year old bull, or ‘novillo’, in Las Ventas, Madrid.

None of the animals would charge that afternoon and

instead chopped with their horns. This was taken the day

before I flew home and was the first corrida Madrid-based

photographer, Ellyn O’Byrne, had been to. My apologies go

to her for suggesting we go. Photo by Ellyn O'Byrne.

22/09/2013

10

other older ranches, choose not to use them and take the risk of having some of their herd rejected. Many do not

have this luxury and see horn-protection as the only way to ensure their survival; but that is perhaps an

inevitable effect of an audience which is growing smaller, but simultaneously more demanding.

The average aficionado of today is wiser, according to Don José Luis Bote Romo, maestro at the Madrid School

of Tauromachy, and tends to focus much more on the artistic quality of the torero than on the violence compared

to the pre-20th century fan. As mentioned above, if a picador shows too much aggression to the bull, he is

booed. In his book Death and Money in the Afternoon, Adrian Shubert describes how the bull was once judged

on the amount of pics he had taken. One particular bull, Peregrino, gained notoriety for having killed 11 horses

(horses were not protected until 1930) and another, Campanero, for taking 16 pics14

. The modern corrida

evolved from lancing bulls on horseback, as a way for the cavalry to practice their horsemanship on a live

enemy; King Carlos I (1500-1588) finding the exercise a ‘wonderful form of training in order to conserve agility

and vigour in times of peace’. Thus, the picador was once the main figure in the ring, which is why he is still

allowed to wear a suit with gold trim, like the matador’s, whilst the banderilleros’ suits are adorned with silver.

This event was naturally much more hunt-like and that atmosphere lingered on for some time after the footmen

had taken over as the lead performers. Although there have always been artistic aficionados, it seems to be at the

turn of the 20th century that the corrida first began to become the emotionally charged spectacle it is today. The

matador Pepe Hilo had written a guide to the ‘Art of Tauromachy’ in the 18th century, but this is very much a

pre-romantic, Golden-Age definition of art, a study of technique and craft; doubtless a shift away from the hunt

towards aestheticism, but without the emotion that people such as the legendary Juan Belmonte would bring in

the early 1900s. Belmonte trained as a boy with his friends by breaking onto farms under cover of darkness and

caping bulls by moonlight. When he began to face bulls in public, he captivated audiences by bringing the

creature closer than anybody had ever done before, turning the corrida into what can only accurately be

described as a dance, and he did so with complete disregard for his own safety. People no longer wanted to see a

big bull killed, they wanted it killed well.

It was then that poets began to pay attention to toreo once again; it had been exalted in the Spanish Golden Age

with sonnets and ballads by the likes of Francisco Quevedo and Gabriel Bócangel, but these praised only the

valiance and honour of certain noblemen and hark more of the ballads of El Cid than of expressions of genuine

emotion. The majority of Spain’s most respected poets at the turn of the 19th century, known as the Generation

of ‘98, had rejected the corrida, seeing it as a sign of old, regressive Spain, Joaquín Costa saying ‘we must lock

and double-lock the sepulchre of El Cid... we will swap glory for progress and battleships for schools’; the

country did not need the blood of heroes and martyrs so much as ‘sang-froid, brains, self-control, mutual good-

will, and, above all, enough to eat.’ That was the cry of the generation who saw their nation’s humiliating defeat

in the Spanish-American war, marking the end of an Empire which had once been the richest in the world. But

thirty years on, the ‘generación de ‘27’ sought to unite the cultured and the popular aspects of Spanish art and

many looked upon the corrida more favourably than Costa and Antonio Machado: they had grown up with the

new style of toreo, emblemised by Belmonte and Joselito; the bulls were no longer a mere spectacle, they were

cathartic drama, and so writers such as Ramón del Valle-Inclán and Federico García Lorca began to evoke the

fiesta in their works, the latter writing Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías when the matador was killed in the

ring, which is the second most important elegy in the Spanish language after Jorge Manrique’s Verses upon the

Death of his Father in the fifteenth century, lines of which are to Spaniards what ‘To be or not to be’ is to the

English.

And so audiences demand art and quality now more than ever, particularly with the work of groups such as

Rafael Peralta’s, for fans know what they are looking for (a dance rather than a hunt, which demands more of

both particpants) and what they are getting. Although the numbers of people attending corridas is falling, those

who do go are becoming more and more knowledgeable and demand both good bulls and pure toreo, a

performance unadorned by tricks, carried out with both technical brilliance and emotion. Peralta is able to

provide the bulls and continue to improve audiences with the courses he runs, but it is in Madrid where I see

those who will go on to face them professionally formed.

14 Shubert, A, Death and Money in the Afternoon: A History of the Spanish Bullfight (New York; Oxford: OUP, 1999) p.41

11

Madrid

School of toreros; Madrid in August

In the countryside on the outskirts of the capital there is a small plot of fenced-off land where the grass is

yellowed and overgrown. Within the complex there is a bullring, a squat office building and a high roofed

gymnasium, which offers slight relief from the sun. Inside, a group of twenty or so teenage boys hone their

skills with capes and swords, working in pairs and taking it in turns to ‘be the bull’, charging each other holding

a pair of horns. They all wear sports clothes and everybody in the room is dripping with sweat, aside from one

man; retired killer of bulls, don José Luis Bote Romo. He is a product of what was then a very new school and,

despite suffering several horrific gorings, including one which kept him away from the ring for two years, he

was able to forge a successful career as a matador in Spain and South America.

The students here are the older, more experienced pupils who train every day; there are no classes in August and

so the younger ones have the month off. Don José tells me that the school accepts boys and girls as young as

twelve. He introduces me to Carlos and Javier who have both been at the school for two years and they

demonstrate the staple passes of toreo for me: Verónicas, performed with the pink and yellow cape, so named

because the torero draws the cape just before the muzzle of the bull in a fashion similar to Saint Veronica

wiping the face of Christ as he carried the cross, and derechazos, or naturales, if performed with the left hand,

which are done with the smaller, red cloth15*

. Don José explains that these passes are the most respected and are

seen as the cornerstones of the craft because of their length; they require the man to hold his posture for a long

time as the entire body of the bull passes completely and safely by him; always near to, but not quite reaching,

the cape.

Carlos tells me that toreo is something you carry deep inside. This is the closest he can get to an explanation of

why he comes here almost every day of the year to train and why he is prepared to kill and risk being killed for

something which, for most students, will unfortunately never be more than a mere hobby. Some pupils I meet

here and a few weeks later at a similar school in Arles, France became toreros on a whim; it was something they

15* For detailed descriptions of the different passes see either the glossary to Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon or

Alexander Fiske-Harrison’s Into the Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight.

A finished suit of lights at the Fermín Tailors of Madrid; the most renowned suit makers in the torero world. Before I

visited the school, I was received by the maestro, Don Antonio López and by French designer, Romain Mittica. The

latter gave me a tour of the workshop. They were currently creating Juan Bautista’s suit for his upcoming appearance

in Arles, at a corrida I would be attending (pictured right). As I left, Don Antonio was with a client explaining how to

clean blood stains from a suit. 23/08/13

12

saw and wanted to try, but for Carlos it is in his veins. His father was a torero and he has grown up watching

bulls in both the country and in the ring, and in his performance I see a glimpse of what he means by ‘carrying’

this passion inside; although the bull is played by Javier, his friend of many years, in his eyes I can see that for

him, he is passing a real bull. He, I am told, ‘gives much to the bull’; he stands face on rather than in profile,

offering his body. He shouts to summon it; his eyes never leaving the horns as he stands, hips thrust forwards,

shoulders relaxed, and he does not break character until the series of passes are over and the ‘bull’ is safely

away. Javier then tells me it’s my turn.

After I string together a few clumsy passes he and Javier go in search of banderillas and show me around the

site. I ask them what other people their age think of what they do; Carlos tells me most people at school,

although they have little interest in the corrida, respect what he does, but there are a few who call him an

asesino; murderer16*

. He also tells me that the date has now been decided for his first kill: it will be on Monday

16th September17*

. I ask him how he feels about it, ‘nervous,’ he laughs. Although he has caped cattle many

times, the kill is the most dangerous part of the corrida and the only one for which there is no dress rehearsal;

the students can practise only on a bull’s head mounted onto a trolley and it is impossible to prepare for the

unpredictability of the live animal who, if he lifts his head at any point as the matador places the sword, will tear

deep through his flesh and muscle. Carlos tells me valour will come from conquering his fear. He is fifteen years

old.

When they have finished training I take the opportunity to speak with a pair of older pupils, one of whom who

kills 1-2 year old male calves, called becerros, and the other a killer of 3 year old males, novillos. They are

surprisingly pragmatic about what they do and are more keen to talk to me about Real Madrid’s then potential

signing of my fellow countryman Gareth Bale than what they thought at the ‘moment of truth’ of the corrida.

They claim to feel very little as they placed the sword; their entire focus being on placing it correctly. This is the

most difficult part of the ordeal, as the cape is held low and directly before the man and he must place the sword

with nothing between his upper body and the horns, being careful not to hit bone and have the sword spring out.

He must then use his momentum to swing around the side of the bull to safety. A lack of emotion is

understandable in the face of this. Even after the animal has dropped they do not claim to feel anything like the

sadness I have read of other matadors experiencing; Francisco Rivera Ordoñez says that each bull he has killed

is a part of him and that he remembers them all. A student in France will tell me he has killed somewhere

between twenty and twenty-five young bulls. Although Rafael Peralta had said he did not think it necessary to

have antecedents in the world to become a torero, I do wonder if perhaps this attitude is a product of the

growing school system, for the idea of a ‘school of tauromachy’ is relatively recent. The horseback toreros of

old, the only ones it is acceptable to call toreadors, would have trained in a Royal Cavalry Armoury and in the

more recent past, the industry tended to be much more closed and inwards; the craft passed on through families

and friends, or at least communities where bull culture is the common bond. Ordoñez comes from thoroughbred

torero stock, stretching back to his Great Grandfather and as such, a reverential respect for bulls is ingrained

deep within him. There are, of course, many highly successful matadors who are not from such families and

who have great respect for bulls, but as is described in Juan Belmonte’s biography, the struggle was much

greater in the past if one didn’t have friends in the business and Belmonte, at least, came from a community

where everybody knew somebody who knew somebody in the industry. Such a struggle would inevitably weed

out those who did not have the heart required to torear. Perhaps this will be the decisive factor as today’s

students try to ply their trade across the peninsula.

Don José agrees that you must carry something special inside: some students have it and others do not and he

tells me that they can teach only the techniques here. The school and the local government will support the

pupils; subsidising the cost so that anybody between the ages of 12 and 18 who wishes to enrol must pay only 3

euros per month, but the rest comes down to skill, respect for the bull and, more than anything else, Don José

says, luck. The sign which hangs above the students as they train serves as a constant reminder of this: ‘To make

it in the world of toreo is almost a miracle. For he who does, the bull can take his life, but never his glory’.

16* Matador means killer, asesino means murderer; only the latter is pejorative in this world. 17* He cut both ears and the tail.

13

Meeting the students and hearing the passion with which some of them spoke of what they do reinvigorated me

and helped to restore my faith in the potential of the corrida, which had been gravely weakened the afternoon

before at the corrida I attended in the world’s most important bullring, Madrid’s Las Ventas.

Madrid in August has probably done more for the anti-bullfighting movement than any animal rights

organisation. The arena is no more than a quarter full and almost every spectator was a tourist, the locals having

fled the unbearable heat of the city for the summer, and many visitors, not really knowing what the corrida is,

are keen to see a nice fair fight. The owners are well aware that the arena is likely to be bereft of knowing

aficionados during the summer and so the bulls are cheap and, often, difficult to work with. Newspaper reports

the day after the corrida I attend say the toreros worked well technically, discussing subtleties I do not yet have

the experience to notice. As for me, two thirds of the corrida are agonising to watch: of the three matadors, only

Paco Ureña manages to transmit emotion and kill well, whilst Javier Solís and Ivan García both fail with the

sword and deliver slow, ugly deaths. The unknowing audience do not help matters; failing to pay both man and

bull the respect the fiesta demands; they laugh at the men taking cover behind the wooden panels and some

laugh when García’s first bull is dying, because in his struggle he has caught one of the capes with his horn and

has flung it across his back and head. There

was no dignity and no sense in the killing. All

context was removed and the event became

an absurd ritual killing.

Although it is against the law to enter or

leave an arena whilst a bull is alive on the

sand, as the afternoon’s fourth bull is pic-ed,

around forty spectators decide they had seen

enough and file past me towards the exit. If

this had been my first and only exposure to

the corrida, I would probably have joined

them. The last bull had refused to drop. After

several attempts with the reserve sword,

known as the descabello, which is used to

sever the spinal cord when the head is down,

the bull lowered to the ground. The dagger

man is then, if necessary, tasked with

providing what is supposed to be a coup-de-

grace to the bull. But after about five of these

blows of mercy, he rises to his feet again. He

stumbles slowly, the other toreros go to wave

their capes on either side of him with the

intention of turning his head so that the sword

will begin to cut him up inside, providing a

quicker death, but the matador stops them, as

there was no blade in him to cut and he was clearly close to death. Eventually he fell.

Even though I had begun to accept the view that the corrida was nowhere near as cruel or damaging as what

happens in the meat industry, due to the treatment during life (and often slaughter) it is still very painful to

watch a bull killed like this18*

. Coming from a nation of animal lovers, we eat over 900 million of them a year,

my sensibilities are not tuned to seeing real, violent death. The problem I believe many, including myself for a

time, face with the corrida is that it shows the animal as just that; an animal with a will to live. We are

accustomed to seeing slices, cuts, joints of meat which do not resemble a creature in the slightest, or we go too

18 Into the Arena covers the ethics of the corrida very well, as does Sue Cross’ article for the Huffington Post, ‘Blood Sports

or Factory Farming? Which Is the Crueller? A Case for the Vegan Option Continued’. She is both vegan and anti-corrida.

Ivan García (lilac and gold) embraces Paco Ureña before handing

him the sword. Ureña is confirming his matador status. Javier Solís

witnesses. Whilst this rite of passage took place, two other toreros

tried to hold the bull’s attention from behind a wooden panel on the

other side of the ring, although he threatened to interrupt the

ceremony several times. 25/08/2013

14

A ‘novillero’

brings the bull

onto the horse at a

later event in Las

Ventas, Madrid.

Note the

concentric circles

drawn into the

sand. The picador

must wait for the

bull to come to him

outside the larger

of the two. He will

try to lure the

animal by moving

the horse, but fans

will whistle in

complaint if he

crosses the line.

Photo by Ellyn

O'Byrne. 22/09/13

far the other way, we anthropomorphise the creatures we do not send to slaughter; treating pets like children,

dressing dogs in human clothes and projecting our expectations onto them. Of course, the aficionado projects

their expectations onto a bull too; you can have ones that are good, bad, brave, noble, tame, easily-distracted,

treacherous etc. In reality, the bull seeks only to defend himself from danger (it was one of Spain’s most

respected matadors, Enrique Ponce, who said, ‘if the bull could speak, he would say “leave me in peace!”’) but

by placing him in the ring he is at least able to exhibit a power and beauty which is very much natural.

Whether you will see him ‘shine’ or whether he will be butchered is impossible to foretell. By buying good bulls

from respected farms, a ring owner can reduce the chances of the latter (with a bad bull, even the best matadors

may not be able to do anything more than kill it quickly) but as he is a wild, unpredictable animal, who has

never met a cape-carrying man before, one never can be sure until both are on the sand. Madrid is the corrida

laid bare, stripped of all artistry. Whereas many other art forms are popularly judged on how closely they

emulate reality, the corrida must try to do the opposite: whilst never forgetting the supreme sacrifice being

made, the beauty and the narrative must outweigh the vulgarity of the foundation, which is simple killing. This

is something only Paco Ureña manages to achieve. He capes and kills passionately and continues to bring both

of his bulls, the first particularly, who begins to charge very straight after facing the picador, closer and closer to

his body, whilst his feet remain anchored to the ground; wrapping the bull around him, bloodying the front of

his glittering suit. This is one of the most important days in his career, as he ‘confirms his alternative’. Paco

Ureña had become a qualified Killer of bulls (able to face fully grown 4-5 year olds) in his home town of Lorca

in 2006. This is called ‘taking the alternative’ and involves a ceremony in which the most experienced matador

on the billing bestows his sword upon the matador-to-be and allows him to kill the first bull of the afternoon,

which, in a regular corrida, is taken by the most senior matador. However, as different rings have varying

reputations and standards, this ceremony must eventually be ‘confirmed’, although many matadors trade for

years without confirmation, as Ureña has, and this is done by repeating the ritual in one of three places; Mexico

City, Bogota, or Madrid.

As unpleasant as the rest of the corrida was, Ureña’s performance is the one which remains with me now. I

remember the poor kills too and they played heavily on my mind for a long time, but with distance and more

experience I have realised that these are anomalous. Quantitatively speaking, this is much less common than the

badly stunned cow. Just because this happened before my eyes rather than being hidden in a meat factory, it is

no worse. Nonetheless, when one sees and confronts it, it is very difficult to digest.

15

Salamanca and Laguna de Duero

To Kill Receiving; the Horseback Corrida

North-West in Castilla y León, meaning is put back into the corrida. This region is home to Spain’s oldest

functioning bull farm, the Rasa del Portillo, whose bulls I will see in a horseback corrida in a town just south of

Valladolid, and so the region has a claim, as do several others, to being the true home of the corrida. I see bulls

in Salamanca, where I sit amongst a respectful audience; one which demands much of the performer before

requesting trophies and calls for silence when the time comes to kill. Although the bulls are not of particularly

high-quality, the toreros are able to work with them, and there is sense given to their death by the context of the

crowd and everybody on the sand, which results in a redemptive afternoon.

This is also the first and only time I see somebody kill ‘receiving’ the bull. Just as the picador cannot charge the

bull and must wait outside the larger of the two concentric circles drawn in the sand for the animal to ‘invite’ his

punishment, the traditional way to kill a bull was by ‘receiving’ him. The matador would plant his feet firmly in

the ground, cite with the sword and summon the animal. The bull charges and impales himself on the blade and,

effectively, kills himself. The danger of this method has all but done away with it and matadors now almost

always kill ‘on flying feet’, meaning that the man runs at the bull. It is aspects like this which make me question

whether the corrida might be gradually growing away from the pure ‘tragedy’ it once apparently was; for the

‘receiving’ kill allows the hero to die as a direct result of his flaw; the noble, but ultimately suicidal, need to

charge. The five other bulls of the afternoon have their aggression exploited to weaken them, to create the dance

with the capes, but they are killed with a method that was originally invented to deal with bulls who were too

tired to charge; making matador agent and bull merely passive recipient: victim.

However, although the purity of the tragedy is perhaps compromised, this does not necessarily diminish the

artistry of the corrida, as long as the matador is able to convey the danger which does still accompany all

killing. Arguing that there was art in the corrida, dramatist Valle-Inclán theorised that without substantial risk of

death to the man, there would be no tragedy and consequently no more fiesta. He describes how Juan Belmonte

is able to project this risk through his performance, and is thus exciting and able to create tragedy. Meanwhile,

Belmonte’s rival, the technically brilliant Joselito, ‘will tire audiences’ for he deadens the risk with his

mathematical precision. Eight days after his twenty-fifth birthday, Joselito was gored and killed in the bullring

of Talavera de la Reina. The danger is always there, but is of no value in itself; it is the perception of the danger

which counts. Even though goring is no less common, the chances of the torero dying in the ring are much

smaller than they once were. This is due mainly to medical advances, but nonetheless, the risk of fatality is still

present and, as long as the corrida maintains its current structure, always will be. The torero’s job is to

maximise the apparent potential for this; a torero’s death or a horrific goring, such as that of Juan José Padilla in

2011, serve as coarse reminders to the public of the gravity of the corrida, but true art can convey such things

symbolically. Although both must exist for the corrida to continue, in terms of the risk of fatality to the matador

at least, representation has begun to outweigh reality.

This is not the case, I feel, with the horseback corrida. I cannot claim that what I saw in Laguna de Duero, a

small town just south of Valladolid in the North-Western region of Castile-y-Leon, is representative of the field

as a whole or of it at its best: for the ring is third category (there are only three categories) and the performers

are unrated. However, this experience does allow me to witness the nature of the event from which the modern

corrida on foot evolved. The horseback discipline, known as rejoneo, sees man and horse set against bull and

seems to lack the intimacy of the other corridas I have seen and appears to be more hunt-like. For, although

there is opposition and struggle in the corrida, aficionados see the two characters as dual protagonists rather

than hero and villain. They will often describe it in terms of tragedy and dance, as have I. Obviously, to ignore

all opposition and call bull and man actors or dance partners is to downplay the severity and gravity of the act,

as, with the sacrifice, the corrida is much more than an art. However, seeing it done well, one realises why

‘fight’ is also such an unacceptable translation, as it equally is for rejoneo, but there is, it seems, a greater sense

of dualism present which engenders a degree of competition.

16

In the alleyway separating us from the sand, I discuss this with professional matador and guest-of-honour David

Luguillano. He tells me that the horseback corrida has more of a party atmosphere compared to the serious tone

of his corrida. Rafael Peralta had said something similar; he suggested that many people prefer the horseback

event as the interplay appears to be between horse and bull, which can seem less cruel and coarse than the

interaction between man and bull.

As with all corridas, it begins with the parade, in which the three horsemen ride in, exhibiting their animals in a

style not unlike that of dressage. They are followed by the toreros on foot; the men with the capes are reduced to

their historical roles, there to protect the riders and keep the bull occupied between acts. The horses’ names are

announced but, unlike the corridas I have seen before, there is no information on the bull, who plays the role of

aggressor and enemy, pursuing the horse around the ring. I reiterate that this is not representative of the

discipline; there is typically information given about the bull. The equestrian skill is dazzling; and these

creatures seem a different species to the picador’s blindfolded horse, who is little more than a wall for the bull

to charge against. These horses are able to show their character as the riders control them, dextrously moving

them before the bull, ‘as if they were capes’, I am told. The rider circles the ring with the bull’s horns just inches

from the flank of the horse, who trots sideways. The rider holds a spear which he places in the bull’s hide, the

small blade on the tip detaches from the shaft and sticks into the bull, revealing a flag which the rider holds

down at the horse’s side. This becomes the bull’s new target and the chase continues. The bull eventually gives

up and man and horse turn triumphantly away and ride over to the alley to take another flag from his sword

handler: this man scuttled past me many times that afternoon with an assortment of bloodied flags, spears and

daggers.

In the next act, for which the performer might change horses, he places ‘little flags’, banderillas; identical to

those used in the regular corrida. They can be placed in different ways, but, as with everything done to the bull

here, it can only be done when the bull is charging. Several banderillas are placed and then it is time for the

short banderillas or, alternatively, ‘roses’ might be placed, which bring the same punishment, but are decorated

with a rose rather than a coloured stick.

The final blow then comes from the rejón. It is a flat, broad blade which must be placed centrally and vertically.

Several times in the afternoon it is not and the man beside me, who is guiding me through the event (who I am

later told is the Mayor of Laguna de Duero) shakes his head and tells me that these are bad kills, despite the fact

that the bulls killed in this way die more quickly. It is a question of the most important knightly characteristic:

honour. A quick kill does not necessarily mean a good kill. It is a question of how it is done; nothing can be

done to the bull unless he is already charging and the blade must be placed where the risk to the killer is

greatest, making man and horse hero. This elevates it above the hunt to a certain extent as risk is voluntarily

increased, but nonetheless, although the bull is appreciated (the first bull keeps his mouth closed throughout the

ordeal, which the mayor tells me is a sign of bravery) he does not appear to carry the valour, honour and

heroism for which he is revered in the corrida on foot.

The third bull, I am told, is distracted. He looks around at the noisy crowd rather than the horse, whom he is

reluctant to charge. The first flag attracts his attention; he turns like a dog chasing his tail to find the pain and

then bucks like an American rodeo bull. I imagine another audience would protest for a change of bulls, for a

substitute is always brought to the ring, but using him is an expensive decision. Here that does not happen. One

of the ring’s accountants tells me how difficult it has become to make money running such an arena, ‘you must

do a lot of maths’, he laughs. Here, the council supports the plaza, but in bigger rings, the payment goes the

other way. As the quantities of money changing hands at these first class rings is much greater and tickets

bought at all rings are taxed, it is believed that the state does actually make a profit from the bulls, despite the

subventions it provides. This is, of course, refuted by those who oppose the corrida and accurate statistics on the

net profit/loss of the bulls are very difficult to find, given that the money comes from different government

sectors and that the bulls also generate lots of income indirectly.

17

But here in Laguna de Duero, the entire sun side is empty and were it not for the help of the state, this ring

would surely close. This is something that Spain’s leading political party have made very clear they do not want

to happen. I was in Catalonia, where the corrida was banned in 2010, at a key moment for the taurine industry,

as the Spanish Government discussed and debated a petition (known as a Popular Legislative Initiative, or ILP

in Spanish) to officially name the corrida a ‘Heritage of Cultural Interest’ (Bien de interés Cultural). The

petition had gathered almost 600,000 signatures from concerned aficionados across Spain hoping to ensure

greater protection for the tradition, which was enough to see it admitted and discussed in Parliament, and it was

suggested at that time that, if passed, it might even be used to invalidate the law of prohibition passed in the

north-eastern region of Catalonia.

In the tunnel before the corrida de rejones in Laguna de Duero. I was fortunate enough to watch this corrida from the

alleyway which runs around the ring with an expert guide: I was later told he was the Mayor of the town. 10/09/13

Rejoneador Mariano Rojo is pursued by the

bull and prepares to place the first bandera

(the blade is out of shot). The sun side of the

ring is almost completely empty. 10/09/13

Rojo about to deliver the final blow with the rejón. The horses are

unprotected. 10/09/13

18

Barcelona

The Patchwork Bull Hide

Animal Rights lawyer Anna Mulà, who wrote the law of prohibition in Catalonia, was not at all worried by these

developments. When we met at a cafe in the centre of Barcelona, the wording of the pro-corrida petition had

just been found to be illegal and thus was being rewritten. Therefore nobody could be certain as to what

demands it would ultimately include, and whether or not it would be voted through in Parliament was another

matter entirely. Nonetheless, she was certain that there was no way her ban would be overturned.

The day after the 2010 prohibition for which Anna had worked was approved, newspapers across the world

broke the story that the cruel tradition was finally over in Spain’s richest community, but newspapers within the

country had a different angle. The ban had nothing to do with animal rights and was in truth an attempt by

separatists to distance Catalonia from the rest of Spain. Some of Spain’s most well-known newspapers,

including ABC and El Mundo, had declared their support for the bulls when the initial petition against the

corrida (which was also an ILP, but petitioning the regional rather than the national Government) began to

gather steam. The ban and apparent threat to the future of the corrida resulting from it have reinvigorated the

corrida-friendly press and the taurine lobbies, who have taken action to protect and promote it in other parts of

the country and, they hope, bring the bulls back to Catalonia. The serious campaigns threatening to undo Anna’s

work are the above mentioned counter-petition with 600,000 signatures and an objection made to the

Constitutional Tribunal by Spain’s leading party about the legality of the ban.

Anna denies the backlash resulting from the regional ban has damaged the chances of attaining her and her

fellow campaigners’ ultimate goal, which is the complete eradication of the corrida. She sees the Catalan ban as

the first triumph and refutes the argument that it was politically minded, instead telling me that it was simply

the natural progression to a series of previous laws passed in the autonomous community since the fall of Franco

aimed at bettering animal welfare, including the prohibition of the building of new rings and the celebration of

corridas in portable rings; the ban of under 14s at corridas and a codicil to the wording of the law to

acknowledge that bulls can suffer psychological as well as physical pain.

Although Paco Piriz, President of the Catalan Union of Taurinos and Aficionados, whom I meet outside the

dusty, museum-of-a-bullring La Monumental, Barcelona, sees these laws as proof that the Catalan government

has for years been trying to weaken support so as to facilitate the ban. He tells me that it became difficult to

advertise events and that the ring owner was fined for putting up a sign up on the outside of the venue where the

corrida was to take place. This, combined with the difficulty of kindling new interest due to the under-14s ban,

he claims, gave the appearance that the bulls did not belong to Catalonia, despite the fact that the La

Monumental had once been the most important bullring in Spain.

However, it was the most important ring during the days of General Franco’s dictatorship, when Spanish or,

more accurately, Castilian and Andalusian, identity was forced onto the entire nation. The Catalan language was

banned along with many regional, ‘non-Spanish’ traditions, and all autonomous power was lost: political

instruction came from Madrid. So, when King Juan-Carlos succeeded Franco and the transition to democracy

began in the 1970s, after thirty-six years of repression, people began to take issue with the corrida’s nickname,

‘The National Fiesta’ (which was first used long before the Civil War). For hundreds of years bull games had

been practised across much of the Iberian peninsula, known as the piel de toro or ‘bull-hide’ because of its

shape, but as Henry Kamen has indicated, pointing to the works of philosopher and statesman Gaspar Melchor

de Jovellanos, by the middle of the 18th century, afición was to be found in many regions, but could by no means

be considered national19

.

19 Kamen, H ‘Los Toros desde el Siglo de Oro’ El Cultural, El Cultural, 08.06.12 Web. (accessed 25.10.2013)

19

As proof of the political nature of

the abolition, Paco and the Union

point to the fact that the Catalan

petition did not call for a ban on

correbous. This term translates as

‘bull runs’, but encompasses a range

of popular festivals with bulls in the

street, many of which are generally

accepted to be just as cruel, if not

more cruel, than the corrida itself.

Anna tells me that public awareness

of the correbous was low when the

petition was drafted and so they

were excluded in the fear that fewer

people would have signed seeing

something they do not recognise,

thus jeopardizing their chances of

success. Piriz, who dislikes bull-in-

the-street festivals, disagrees and says they have always been popular in Southern Catalonia, in places such as

Tarragona. He agrees that they would have jeopardized the ban’s chances; not because people didn’t know what

they were, but because these festivals are markedly Catalan and not Spanish. One can still see a bull have his

horns set alight in Catalonia, pulled through the streets by ropes tied to his horns, or forced to run into the sea.

Such festivals have been banned in several other regions of Spain, but here, when the law was under

development, the CiU (Convergence and Union, a moderate Catalan Nationalist Party) argued that ‘they [the

correbous] come from our deepest roots; they come from our country, Cataluña’ and so should not be included

in any law passed20

.

Anna tells me they are currently working on a plan to abolish these events, but does not see it happening in the

near future. In her case, and that of the founders of PROU (Catalan for ‘enough’) which is the organisation

which first began the campaign, there is no doubt that the entire issue is one of animal rights. She saw a corrida

at the age of six and cried so much that her family had to tell her the bull wasn’t real, but the overwhelming

belief amongst taurinos is that the move was later hijacked by separatists when the time came for the vote.

Following the lead of Catalonia, the North-Western region of Galicia held a vote earlier this year on the future

of the corrida. They suffered the same injustices under Franco, but here, more than Catalonia, the corrida has

never belonged. The Galicians identify themselves as Celts rather than Iberians; their countryside is green and

hilly like Wales and their fiesta music is marked by the bagpipe rather than the guitar. Those most insistently

calling for the ban were the ‘Galician Nationalist Bloc’ (BNG) but, as the ‘People’s Party’ (PP), Spain’s

equivalent of the Conservative Party, currently hold a majority in the parliament and did not allow a free vote on

the issue, the proposal failed. Anna assures me they will try again and that if the BNG take power in the next

elections, which currently seems likely, she has no doubt that the ban will go through.

To those outside Spain, the news of the ban in Catalonia sounded a death knell for the industry and I admit that,

before I began to research the corrida, I had assumed that Barcelona’s ban would mark the beginning of the end.

But, even though many people will have lost money and jobs from the ban, if history is anything to go by, it

poses no great threat to the future of the bulls. For people have been trying to ban the corrida for hundreds of

years, although it is only recently that this has been done in the name of animal welfare. Pope Pius V tried to

prohibit the practice in 1567, believing it endangered the souls of those who took part, and a popular argument

in the slightly more recent past was that the corrida was not economically viable, as ‘in the many years that a

20 De Haro de San Mateo, V ‘La respuesta de la prensa española ante la Iniciativa Legislativa Popular’ Prensa, Cultura y

Sociedad PILAR, 2011 pdf. (accessed 30.10.2013)

A map of the 'bull hide' composed of the nation's regional flags. Catalonia

is marked with horizontal red and yellow stripes. Photo copyright free.

20

bull grazes, two or three generations of cows could be raised’21

(something which would probably be used as a

defence of it today). The corrida has always worked around attempted bans. Since returning from Spain, the

government has declared the corrida a part of the ‘Immaterial Cultural Heritage’ of Spain, but not, as the

petition had originally called for a ‘Heritage of Cultural Interest’. The move is more symbolic than practical and

will not, as originally proposed, have the power to overturn the ban in Catalonia or prevent other bans in the

future, but in light of this the Government must now work to gain recognition and protection from UNESCO

and the declaration sends a clear message about Madrid’s feelings on the corrida.

Throughout my journey people have told me about the ‘Two Spains’; a phrase coined by the poet Antonio

Machado about the sad state of the nation: there is one Spain yawning, and another dying, he wrote, but it is

now used to describe what Hispanist JB Trend calls ‘the most deep rooted of all Spanish traditions’; political

separatism22

. However, to say there are two Spains is a gross understatement: George Orwell’s Homage to

Catalonia shows that the Civil War was not a simple case of Fascists against Republicans; the ‘Republicans’

comprised of any individual or group which was anti-fascist, an assortment of ideologies temporarily cobbled

together for a common good. This tendency stretches all the way back to the first days of what we now call

Spain; Trend describes the ancient community councils, known as fueros of the peninsula, and speaks of ‘a

people whose gift for local self-government has been proved again and again in its history, and frustrated again

and again by an incompetent central authority’23

. They have united out of convenience to form many ‘Spains’:

the Iberians and the Celts, The Cantabrians and the Pyreneans, the latter becoming the Catalan and Aragonese,

uniting against Asturias and Castile. A Castilian later inherited the Kingdom of Aragon; his grandson, King

Ferdinand II, married Isabella I of Castile, creating the pact that would allow for the eventual unification of

Spain after the Moors were expelled. This bull-hide was patched together, born of convenience and the promise

of wealth, but the seams are now strained and the corrida has found itself in the centre of the tension, not just on

geographical borders, but on social ones.

21 Shubert, p.152 22 Trend, JB The Civilisation of Spain (London: OUP, 1944) p.11 23 Ibid., p.193

A bull with his horns covered in a street festival

in Arles. He trots around the track several times

with no runners before retreating to the street

where he was unloaded. Some people approach

him but he offers little threat. 06/09/13

21

San Sebastián de Los Reyes

Bulls in the Street

Detractors of the fiesta hold hope that, even if prohibition does not come, the corrida will become extinct before

long due to an apparent lack of interest amongst young Spaniards. A common criticism is that bull culture is

anachronistic and that, in a nation becoming ever more modern and Europeanised, growing ever further from the

rustic, coarse land described by Laurie Lee, the bulls have no place. In San Sebastián de Los Reyes, or ‘Sanse’,

a town thirty minutes north of Madrid by train, this seems to be the case in terms of the corrida; I visit the town

for their annual August festival and meet with friends who seem to see the bullring as a sign of old, right-wing

Spain. There is a reasonable number who do go; the Twitter account of Juventud Taurina (Taurine Youth) has

over 15 000 followers, but football is by far the most popular spectacle. However, pictures and videos of historic

corridas show that there has never been a large youth attendance at the ring. The fact that the majority of

Spanish adolescents stay away is, I believe, not hugely telling of its current situation; It has always been the case

that adults go, taking their children (it was illegal for children to enter in Franco’s era, but the law was rarely, if

ever, enforced) and perhaps planting the seed of afición which, although often ignored in adolescence,

understandable given that a good seat will often cost upwards of €30, may grow in early adulthood.

The potential afición is nonetheless kept kindling by many other bull related events. Although the corrida is the

most emblematic of taurine activities, it is by no means the only one and it is certainly not always the most

popular. When I am in Laguna de Duero, I am told that what fills the ring is the bloodless acrobatic corrida,

known as corrida de recortes. This is much more sport like and the performers, who are in competition with one

another, use athletic and acrobatic skill to dodge or jump over the charging bull. It takes its name from the

recorte, the main weapon in the athlete’s armoury; he cuts across the charge of the bull and, at the moment their

paths cross, creates a C shape with his body, leaning back and passing the horns unharmed. There is no deceit;

the man is the cape and is not trying to ‘trick’ the bull as the torero does. Part of the reason that the younger

generations find these events so much more appealing than the corrida de toros is because they cost only a

fraction of the price, but also, they are much easier to watch; they lack the gravity and sombreness of the festival

of death, whilst maintaining the excitement of the danger.

It is this which also drives droves of young people every year, not just from Spain but from all over the world, to

take part in bull runs. There are runs all across Spain, but the most iconic is that of Pamplona. Made famous by

Ernest Hemingway in his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, this festival has grown bigger every year since and so

for one week every July the capital city of Navarre becomes bloated with visitors, many of whom are there for

the alcohol as much as the bulls. Tourist money has meant that the picturesque old town has been crystallised

and the bulls can still run on the famous cobbles, but, with the sheer volume of runners taking part, many of

whom lack both experience and sobriety, it appears to have become, according to the pictures and reports

published shortly before my arrival in Spain, morbidly dangerous. I wanted to experience the run, but not there;

instead I would go to Little Pamplona (Pamplona Chica). That is the nickname given to the bull runs of Sanse, a

tradition begun within thirty years of the town’s foundation in 1492. The bulls are no less deadly, but the people

certainly are. This is not a tourist attraction and they do not want it to be. Without the tourists, little of the old

town has been preserved. Here, the bulls run on asphalt and the people wear sports gear rather than the famous

red and white of Pamplona.

I walk to the route of the run with Alberto, a friend of a friend from University. After I have explained my

research to him, he pauses for a moment and then tells me he thinks he might be a little anti-corrida. We then

climb through the barriers and onto the track. This is the heart of bull country; it is simply a part of life. For

Alberto and his friends, as well as being sanguine and cruel, the corrida represents right-wing, Spanish

nationalism, as I mentioned above, but the run and the following event, which is an amateur caping of cows and

bulls in the ring, are viewed as harmless fiesta activities.

He has no intention of getting close to the animals and so runs from the final stretch of track, far from where the

bulls are released, the nickname of which I do not wish to provide. His friends and I will also run from there

22

tomorrow after trasnochando (the Spanish have a handy verb for staying out all night); it is for those who do not

want to take part in the run, but do want to get into the arena for free to watch the capea, or ‘caping’, an amateur

spectacle which follows the event. On the first day, I have to pay to enter, having jumped out of the track as the

bulls pass me.

As we wait before the run, I slowly drift closer to the bend from where the bulls will appear, choosing to stand

with a group of middle-aged men who are limbering up and who look more confident than those further down

the track. The firework goes to announce the release of the bulls and the first runners appear. I know to wait; I

hold on and begin to wish I had gone with Alberto. The crowd running by me thickens, I eventually cave and

join them, quickly accelerating even though as of yet there is no sign of a bull behind me. I stay close to the

fences and look over my shoulder every couple of strides, but all I can see are people. I look forwards and

continue. Suddenly I hear a clanging noise and realise I haven’t looked behind me for a few seconds; it is the

bells of the steers, I open up into a sprint and see a mass of black parting the crowd behind me to my left. A few

moments later I have had enough and I clamber between the fence panels out of the track and gradually regain

my composure.

When I reach the ring, the capea has already begun. This event is a chance for the public to enter the ring with a

small cow or a bull and, before the schools were created, it was an opportunity for would-be-toreros to practise

and exhibit their skills. However, those with dreams of turning professional almost always go through schools

nowadays and on the first day I see that, in Sanse at least, the caping has become little more than a chance for

the local boys to show off their bravery and impress their girlfriends who watch from the barrier. Some dodge

the bull vaguely athletically, a few use their jackets as capes, but most simply run wide around the animal and

vault over the wall if it begins to move in their direction.

Others grab the horns from the safety of the barriers. It is very difficult to explain to Alberto and his friends how

this, to me, feels crueller than a corrida. There is no blood, but there seems to be little value and even less

valour in the caping: it is mere teasing. The bull-run I understand: it is a chance to get close, to smell and to feel

the power of the bull. After running away from them, my respect for the matadors who, this evening, will stand

still before these creatures and invite them to charge centimetres from their bodies has increased greatly, but I

cannot appreciate the caping and the other bull festivals I see. In the town of Laguna de Duero I meet José and

Diego, founders of www.artetaurino.es, one of the most popular, and one of the most frequently attacked,

websites dedicated to bull festivals in the world. With them, I see the caping done slightly better; this happens

Just before making my escape in San Sebastián de los Reyes. This is a screenshot taken from Antena 3; a national

television channel which broadcasts all six runs of the feria live at 8am. That night, Alberto points out a strange but,

to him, familiar smell in the street and tells me it is tomorrow’s bulls in the corrals. 27/08/13

23

after the midnight bull-run and more people ‘perform’ with the bulls, including amateur acrobats, who dive and

roll over them. Nonetheless, as visually impressive as this is, it flatters and dignifies only the people, not the

cattle and seems a little garish, although part of the reason for that might be because one sector of the ring had

been transformed into a disco with a live DJ for the evening.

However, the ring was full, unlike at the afternoon’s horseback corrida. To cite lack of interest in the bulls

amongst the young as an indicator of its doomed future is, therefore, a seriously flawed theory. There is huge

interest in bulls, just not necessarily in killing them and it is the latter for which the animal is primarily bred.

Were they ever to do bull-runs without the corrida,

the only difference would be the route of the course;

ending in the slaughterhouse rather than the bullring.

For a bull can appear only once in Castile. According

to José and Diego, even though they still practise the

corrida, in certain respects the regions of Castile,

where Sanse is located, and Castile-y-León, where

Laguna de Duero is, have better bull welfare

regulation than Catalonia. As we watch the bulls go

by from behind high metal bars, they explain to me

that in Castile-y-León and several other Spanish

regions, the festivities must feature unbroken bulls,

called toros cerriles, whereas in regions including

Catalonia and Valencia, they may use corralled bulls,

or toros de corro. The difference is that the unbroken

bulls are bought and the corralled ones are rented. In

Castile, law insists that once a bull has left the farm, it

can never return (unless pardoned, which I will

discuss later). However much he suffers during a

fiesta, and there are some vicious public bull games

rejected even by many matadors and aficionados, he

will, at least, have to face it for just one festival before

being taken to the slaughterhouse, unless he is killed

during the event, as is the case in some, such as the

Toro de la Vega, in which a bull is hunted through a

meadow by the citizens. The corralled, however, can

be taken back to the farm, have any injuries treated

and then be used again and again.

I am reminded of an interview I had read with British

matador Frank Evans in Catherine Tosko’s The Bull

and the Ban, in which he pointed out that in the 150

years since the first activist group against the corrida

was formed in Spain, abolitionists have not made a

single change to the corrida. He lists the changes which have all come from within the industry: the picador’s

horse has been protected since 1930, his lance has been altered to limit the depth the spear can penetrate and

laws about the age of bulls in full corridas were altered long ago24

. In addition to this, in the 19th

century, it was

aficionados who successfully demanded that the setting of dogs on ‘tame’ bulls be banned. Such changes are

slow to happen with such a polarised situation; most animal-rights groups refuse to entertain the idea of reforms

or of entering discussions with those inside the industry, and everything within this world is mired in tradition

and so alterations always meet with strong opposition, slowing the process, at times to a halt.

24

Tosko, loc. 1567

A young man tries to attract the bull with his jacket at the

midnight capea in Laguna de Duero, where José and Diego

are filming for artetaurino.es. They apologise to me for the

running which preceded this, as the bulls had refused to

run. They blame the councilman charged with selecting the

animals as he has picked the same ones two days in a row. I

am told that last year bottles were thrown at his house for

this. 11/09/13

A man performs a 'recorte' in Sanse. The bull run ends in

the ring. The runners jump over the barrier and find seats

as the bulls are taken out of the ring. They will be killed in

the evening. Other bulls and cows, unfit to face matadors,

are used in the capea. The ring slowly warms up as the sun

rises. After the capea, everybody goes home and sleeps,

having spent the night celebrating in the streets. 28/08/13

24

Arles

The International Corrida; Conclusion

I am optimistic and hopeful crossing the border into France; I have seen and felt the potential for pure, cathartic

drama at corridas elsewhere, but feel that it is yet to be fully delivered. I have seen bulls pic-ed well, then caped

badly, I had seen ugly pics, but banderillas placed creatively and I have seen close, slow cape work undone by

lengthy kills. All of the parts were there, but not the whole; not the perfect bull aficionados had told me about,

who is faced and killed so well that all the other terrible kills are justified. I hoped that this might come in the

2000 year old Roman amphitheatre of Arles.

Although the Spanish corrida is without doubt facing difficult times, the bulls have gone from strength to

strength in the south of France over recent years. The Arles School of Toreros attracts students from across the

world, arguably the most important corrida of recent years took place in neighbouring Nîmes in 2012 and in

2011 the corrida was declared part of ‘Immaterial French Heritage’, for a time technically making it better

protected in the South of France, (it is only permitted where an unbroken tradition of it can be proved) than in its

homeland.

There have always been bull games played with the Camarguaise cattle from the surrounding wetlands, the

most popular being the Course Camarguaise, in which competitors attempt to remove ribbons from between the

bulls’ iconic upward-sweeping horns and so, when the Spanish corrida was introduced in the mid-19th century,

it was readily accepted. Here, it carries no political sentiment or reminders of a shameful past; it has always

been admired for what it was rather than what it might represent.

I was invited to the arena two days before the weekend’s main corrida to see the students of the school open the

festival. Three more experienced pupils killed three year old bulls whilst three twelve year old boys practised

their capework on young cows. Before the performance, as I waited with them in the dim tunnel, the maestro

had told me that these boys will not start to kill until they are fourteen. But on the sand they showed impressive

bravery; one was knocked to the ground several times by a cow whose head was level with the boy’s (her horns

projected ‘safely’ sideways) but he returned to face her again and again. Two others made passes together;

placing their capes side by side and calling the cow to charge between them. The older students work well,

although most struggle at the moment of truth. However, this is understandable, firstly because they were just

fifteen years old, but secondly, as there was no picador, the animals were not at all ready for death by the time

the boys took their swords. They were tired, but the banderillas were not enough to lower them sufficiently for

the sword to be placed well. Nonetheless, Rayan Bouchenafer and a Mexican, Andre Lagravère El Galo cut both

ears from their animals and were carried on shoulders from the ring. In the dressing room, I spoke with Andre,

sweating and jubilant, after the event. He did not carry the sadness in the face of killing, but he did carry the

passion, telling me that ‘to be alone in the field with a bull… is like being at home.’ For people like El Galo and

the many non-Spanish aficionados whom I have met, the bulls do not have a nation or a language; they are

universal.

That is why the corrida de toros is so

difficult to translate; one can decipher a

language, but not a mind-set. The English

speaker tends to see sport and bloodlust,

perhaps because of the vulgar ‘bull-fight’,

whilst aficionados see love and respect. Just

as with reading in another language, you

cannot always appreciate it by transposing

it into your own tongue.The fluent foreigner

reads thinking in the language of the text,

not by translating each word, and this is the

same approach I must take with the corrida.

Rayan Bouchenafer waits for his bull 'at the prison door' in tribute to

alumnus of the school and now professional matador Mehdi Sadvalli,

who arrived as we waited in the tunnel. It was easy to spot who was

there to kill; I recall Bouchenafer nervously miming passes using his

hat as a cape. 05/09/13

25

At 5:30 in the afternoon on the second day of the festival, I see the amphitheatre in the daylight. The school’s

performance had taken place under floodlights, but now I see it transformed. This is a to be a Goyesque corrida,

in which the toreros dress in costumes inspired by the paintings of 18th Century Spanish Romantic Francisco

Goya and in Arles it is tradition to invite a designer to decorate the ring. This year it has been decorated by

architect Rudy Ricciotti, who has created what he calls a ‘declaration of love’; covering the sand with thousands

of red rose petals. A choir accompanies the brass band.

The bill is impressive; featuring Enrique Ponce, El Juli, who I had seen in Málaga, and local hero Jean Baptiste,

who performs under the name Juan Bautista. The latter walks into the ring wearing a deep brown suit adorned

with arching white trimmings. I had seen and felt his outfit when it was still under development at the House of

Fermín in Madrid, the most renowned tailor of toreros in the world, where it had been designed by my friend,

Romain Mittica. The suits offer no physical protection and, Romain told me, provide only psychological armour

to the torero. The maestro of the house, don Antonio Lopez Fuentes, who designed José Tomás’ suit for the

most famous corrida of recent years in Nîmes in which he faced six bulls, says that with his suits he seeks to

make the matador feel ‘like king for a day’. Bautista’s transformed him; I very briefly met him in a bar after the

corrida and he appeared shy and embarrassed at being the centre of attention; unrecognisable from the

dominating figure he had been just hours before.

He is awarded both ears from both of his bulls by the president, for they are prepared well for the final third by

the picadors and the banderilleros and the emotion of his

work brings long stretches of silence to the crowd. He acts

as if he is alone with the bull and kills both times with

passion, not once looking away from the animal until he is

dead. But it is El Juli who draws the finest bull of the

afternoon. He is noble, charges straight, and is seemingly

untirable. At first, he seems to lose his footing and skid at

the end of charges, coming worryingly close to El Juli, who

remains calm, slows down even more and apparently

rectifies the fault. The bull begins to direct his focus better

and El Juli calls him over from a distance with the pink cape,

allowing him to accelerate and gather momentum. In the

final third he goes for the cape as keenly as he did when he

first entered the ring, just slightly slower and lower, allowing

El Juli to give a master class in one of the canons of toreo:

temple - the ‘tempering’ of the bull. He must stop the bull,

temper his charge, and then send him away. He holds the

cape just before the animal, brings him in to charge and

bends him around his body, always maintaining a small space between the bull’s muzzle and the cloth, creating

the illusion that he is controlling, even slowing the charge; that he is slowing time. That is why the corrida can

never be considered a sport: sports work against the clock, whereas art creates its own time; and El Juli does this

with a wild animal weighing 530 kg. There are limits to the acts and to the length of time a bull can be in the

ring, but these are in the name of welfare and taste rather than competition. It is after he sends the bull away

with a chest pass that the protests begin. The audience are asking for the bull’s life to be spared.

Although the kill is still the ‘moment of truth’ for a matador, the cape work is often equally talked-about

amongst aficionados. Hemingway writes of the enormous, fierce bulls of the past, before he went to Spain, with

whom the cape was little more than a method of protection and a way to tire the animal, preparing it for the

dramatic climax: his death. The cape is still used for this purpose, but it has become more than that. This is

where transcendence comes from as he creates beauty in the face of vulgarity. But with the focus of aficionados

shifting away from the sacrifice to the aesthetic qualities, it is also here that the bull can earn his salvation.

Bautista practising before the Goyesque corrida in

Arles, wearing the suit designed by Romain Mittica

at the Fermín Tailors of Madrid. 07/09/13

26

The Amphitheatre of Arles decorated for the Goyesque. Blood spectacles have taken

place on this site for over 2000 years. There is a choir just a few metres to my right.

The rain held off until the final third of the afternoon’s last bull; a storm began as

we left the ring. 07/09/13

For exceptional valour and nobility an audience may ask the President to pardon the bull. If the President

consents to the pardon, the animal will be healed and put out to stud, living the rest of his natural life in peace on

the farm. Although this is not a new phenomenon, it appears that it is becoming gradually more common as

years progress. It is still a very rare occurrence, but looking at the statistics of pardoned bulls at the Plaza

México, the world’s largest bullring, one can see that decade by decade the number of bulls who have escaped

with their lives has steadily increased25

. Shubert describes the two types of fans at the nineteenth century

corrida; those there for the blood, for something to watch, and the aesthetic lovers of bulls who asked for the

throwing of fighting dogs into the arena to be prohibited. For whatever reason, tastes and sensibilities have

changed over time and audiences now seem to comprise more than anything of lovers of bulls. There is,

naturally, a practical reason for the pardon; it allows a farmer to introduce desirable genes into his herd, but the

fact that audiences want to see this happen suggests that they are not there for the death.

The corrida is in recession, but those who do go are more knowledgeable than ever, particularly with the great

number of international aficionados who continue to flock to Spain. These people do not cross oceans just to

watch idly and disinterestedly. The world has been forced to open up with recent threats, bringing about the

Spanish Government’s action and bringing aficionados ever closer to their passion. People now demand good,

healthy bulls and know when they are not getting them. It has evolved with time and, to me at least, is not at all

anachronistic in the 21st century, or if it is, then that is its chief virtue: in its current form it makes more sense

than ever. It has, unfortunately, become caught up in politics; whether or not the Catalan ban was political, the

narrative is so widely known as to tar the affair in the public eye. Being ‘not as bad as the meat industry’ does

not make the corrida forever ‘right’, but in our times it can be seen as an exemplary way of treating cattle. We

are beyond simple dichotomies of right and wrong now and something can surely only be ‘moral’ compared to

the yardstick of the day and we must remember that it is not a question of whether it is wrong to kill a living

being, but instead, whether it is wrong to create a living being in order to kill it. With this bull I begin to

understand and on an afternoon such as this it is no more wrong than theatre; the price is high, but the reward is

also. However, we have moved on from the pure tragedy of the past; the corrida still needs death and always

will, but the bull’s tragic flaw, if truly noble, no longer has to be his hubris. The sun is a long way from setting

on this world.

25 Raúl Nacif, J ‘Los indultos en la Plaza México’ Al Toro México, Al Toro México, 26.12.12 Web. (accessed 30.11.13)

Enrique Ponce cites to

kill the first bull of the

afternoon. 07/09/13

27

El Juli walks away from Velero shortly before the pardon is given. Silence is expected as a matador goes in to kill, but here

the noise is deafening. 07/09/13

The protests grow louder as El Juli goes to change his helping sword, which is used to prop open the red cape

for certain passes, for the curved, lethal blade. The President remains silent and El Juli brings the bull’s front

legs together to allow a clean passage for the sword. He cites and hopes that the bull does not lift his head as the

blade goes in. The protests grow louder. Eventually, seconds before El Juli throws himself in front of the horns,

the President concedes and flops an orange silk handkerchief over his balcony, pardoning the bull. El Juli throws

his sword to the ground and leads the bull to the exit with the cape. Velero charges out of the ring, his hooves

send the red petals flying into the air and Julian López Escobar holds his blood stained hands up to the sky.

Bill Webb, Oxford, September – December 2013

28

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Peter Kirk Fund for both their financial support and their practical advice: I would

never have been able to undertake such an ambitious project without your help. I would particularly like to

express my gratitude to Gilly King, Ben Wood, and David Peacock. My thanks go to Abraham Chaibi for

introducing me to the Scholarship. I am indebted to Martin Schwitzner, Álvaro Martín Alhambra, Alexander

Fiske-Harrison and Jesús Nieto for sharing their knowledge and their contacts. Thank you Ellyn O’Byrne for the

photos and once again I apologise for the novillada. Thank you to the London Aficionados a los Toros, in

particular to Pieter Hildering, Robert Weldon, Mark McKinty, and Karim Pasha-Ladbon. The warm reception I

was given by Don José Luis Bote Romo, Carlos Enrique Sanchez Finkley, and the other pupils at the Escuela de

Tauromaquia de Madrid “Marcial Lalanda” and also by Nathalie Noel, the maestros and the students at the

École Taurine d’Arles enriched both my experience and my report. Thanks to Rafael Peralta Revuelta, Paco

Piriz, Verónica de Haro, and to Don Antonio, Romain Mittica and the girls at Fermín. I am grateful to Lore

Monnig for introducing me to the Club Taurino of New York and to Juan-Carlos Conde for writing my

reference. Thank you to Antonio Moreno, Anna Mulà and Alejandra García; although I am sure you will not

agree with what I have written, I respect and am grateful to you all. Thanks also go to Alberto Casas, Álvaro

García Corral and Jaime Ávalos,to Eric Schiller and his friends, to Hervé Galtier, to José and Diego and to

Mayor Luis Mariano Minguela Muñoz. My remaining love and gratitude go to my parents and to Numhom, for

everything.

29

Works Referenced

Cerrillo, Antonio, ‘El número de corridas en España descendió un 41% del 2007 al 2011’ La Vanguardia, La

Vanguardia, 10.02.13 Web.

De Haro de San Mateo, Veronica ‘La respuesta de la prensa española ante la Iniciativa Legislativa Popular’

Prensa, Cultura y Sociedad PILAR, 2011 pdf.

Kamen, Henry, ‘Los Toros desde el Siglo de Oro’ El Cultural, El Cultural, 08.06.12, Web.

Raúl Nacif, J ‘Los indultos en la Plaza México’ al toro México, Al Toro México, 26.12.12 Web.

Shubert, Adrian Death and Money in the Afternoon: A History of the Spanish Bullfight (New York; Oxford:

OUP, 1999)

Tosko, Catherine, The Bull and the Ban (ebook: Suerte Publishing, 2012)

Trend, John Brande, The Civilisation of Spain (London: OUP, 1944)

Tynan, Kenneth, Bull Fever (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1955)

Valle-Inclán, RM del, ‘Cartas a un amigo de Provincias’ (1905), Salmonetes ya no nos quedan, Quintano, IR,

28.04.2011 Web. (accessed 25.10.13)

‘Fact Sheets: Number of UK Vegetarians’. Vegetarian Society, The Vegetarian Society of the United Kingdom

Limited, n.d. Web.

‘Study on the stunning/killing practices in slaughterhouses and their economic, social and environmental

consequences’ European Commission Directorate General for Health and Consumer Protection, European

Commission, 2007 Web.

Other Works Consulted

Chaves Nogales, Manuel, Juan Belmonte, matador de toros: su vida y sus hazañas, ed. Isabel Cintas Guillén,

María (Sevilla: Renacimiento: Diputación de Sevilla, 2009)

Cross, Sue, ‘Blood Sports or Factory Farming? Which Is the Crueller? A Case for the Vegan Option Continued’

The Huffington Post, AOL, 29.01.2013, Web.

Delgado, José, La tauromaquia, o arte de torear 2nd

ed (Madrid: Imprenta de Ortoga y Compañia, 1827)

(consulted online in pdf format at www.asotauro.com)

Fiske-Harrison, Alexander, Into the Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight (ebook: Profile books, 2011)

García Lorca, Federico, ‘Juego y teoría del duende’ Biblioteca, Biblioteca Virtual Universal, 2003 pdf.

Hemingway, Ernest, Death in the Afternoon (London: Vintage Books, 2000)

Hildering, Pieter, More Words About Bulls (Valencia: Avance Taurino, 2010)

Mateo Gomez, Isabel, ‘La lidia de toros en el arte religioso español del siglo XIII al XVI’ El Rostro y el

Discurso de la Fiesta, n.p., n.d. pdf.

30

Trujillo Ruiz, José Antonio, ‘Los Toros en la Literatura’ abconetwo, n.p., n.d. pdf.

(For further information about the corrida, visit www.aficionados-international.com)