After yesterday’s hurricane Roca Rey, which affected the weather in Pamplona with an unannounced cold wind at night that, to say the least, did not reduce the San Fermin revelry one iota, the Jandilla’s confinement was “clean and fast” circumstance and adjectives that are repeated in each one of them and that remain epic to what, even so, continues to be the focus of imposing popular and media attraction. I am afraid, however, that if we continue this drift, with the bulls setting speed records that even Usain Bolt did not, and the runners – divine and experts coming from the geographies of popular festivities aside – wearing multicolored t-shirts and mobile phones at the ready ( times when the newspapers (on paper!) served as the cape for San Fermín), the running of the bulls will be the victim of their own “success”. It is not, of course, about longing for blood, blows, gorings… but it is about giving them back the dose of emotion and unpredictability that define their story, sometimes tragic and undesirable, of course. The other, the speed records, for the Guinness.
About the lockdown. In the poster of bullfighters who announced themselves with “the athlete bulls” in the afternoon, Antonio Ferrera, El Juli and Cayetano, the latter had an intervention the previous morning on the RTVE set, which broadcasts the running of the bulls exclusively. Cayetano, whose connection to Pamplona and the Sanfermines runs through his veins, saved for last, with no time for a reply and with the poker face of the commentators, the demand and request for the broadcast of bullfights on public television, letting it fall that with the – according to the surveys, CIS on the sidelines – change of majorities and new Government after 23J, that will be more feasible.
And Troy burned, with social networks in their usual incendiary role.
Cayetano did well, very well, clamoring to correct an anomaly with totalitarian overtones and devoid of any argument other than manipulation, lies and ignorance, although debatable – not reprehensible – is that he take advantage of the fact that “the Arga passes through Pamplona” to link it to the success of certain political options.
A little over twenty-four hours later, to a full square of course, there was Cayetano in the paseillo, along with Ferrera and El Juli and, in the pigsties, the Olympic gangsters.
The first one came out and Antonio Ferrera displayed his straight, green cloak, a rarity in which he continues to be committed and which hurts the eye. Beginning by doubling down and series in the round that the bull took with vibration that tempered as the slaughter progressed, in which there was also natural bullfighting, leaving the impression that the one from Jandilla was enough for (much) more.
El Juli opened his cape and picked up the first of his batch with four verónicas that had the virtue of fixing the bull, who had an air of distraction and interspersed a kick for chicuelinas between a punch and a punch, if two fleeting encounters with a horse are understood as such and chopper. With self-sufficiency and bullfighting, the bull El Juli took off beyond the stripes of the tercio and ran his hand with temper in a couple of series of bullfighting in the round and with a long stroke that the bull took with nobility, also through the left python. Well structured bullfight, plenty of bullfighter, which lacked a point of emotion. Defective and effective thrust and the capricious box of Pamplona that counted enough handkerchiefs to take out his.
The third had the other brand of the house, Vegahermosa, and Cayetano greeted him with a long change in the tercio. He didn’t like the bull his first encounter with the horse, dozing and running away as soon as he could and the second didn’t go far either. The wind was picking up when Cayetano toasted from the media and from there he went towards the tables to open the task sitting on the stirrup and then kneeling with the bull. The public was already involved in the work.
Bull and bullfighter in the middle, natural, windlass and the chest in the first series, better, more gathered the second. The crutch in the right hand and rounds prior to kneeling on the ground. Lunge overturning that fell behind but it was enough and ear that Cayetano walked between clamors. Surely in the barrage of bullfighters’ heaven, his grandfather and his father, both so Pamplona, ??also celebrated it. Like, in the barrier of one, the Catalan philosopher Víctor Gómez Pin, an entire Ordoñista encyclopedia.
Nothing noteworthy, except for the wind, in the first thirds of the second of Ferrera’s lot, who didn’t really want to attack the crutch either, but when he did, he showed temperance for the right piton, but not for the other. And, back to the right, no more, despite Ferrera’s persistence. With that material and being the moment that it was, the snack, everything happened if not in silence – an impossibility in Pamplona – then with a certain indifference.
By aprons, gaining ground, El Juli received the fifth. And by high feet together began the task. In the media, two round rounds that had command in the arena and even better the natives, which the bull took with humiliation and dedication, guided by the powerful crutch of the right-handed man from Madrid. Substantial task, as powerful as temperate, in perfect conjunction bull-bullfighting, bullfighting drunkenness of a plethoric Juli. Sword blows and shouts of Juli, Juli!, also of bullfighter, bullfighter! while the good Jandilla refused to double (the placement of the sword, somewhat behind, as a reason) and, when he did, two ears at the hands of a masterful Juli. These – unlike previous afternoons – without possible discussion.
Arriving at the sixth, Cayetano’s semi-genuflexing verónicas and chicuelinas at the pace to take him to the horse, where the bull stuck his face firmly. He entered his matador and the bull showed justness of strength, so the second punch was just a drill. Helped by high to start work and ligation in the right hands, some looking at the line. Good condition of the bull and temperance and caste in the bullfighter. On sunny fields, Cayetano on his knees, rudeness and a
moment of trouble when the bull caught him from behind, without consequences. Great lunge, delirium, two ears and a tremendous exit on the shoulders with El Juli.
A jubilant finale to an afternoon in which there were important bullfights, El Juli established a chair and Cayetano honored his lineage.
