This is not a typical bullfighting chronicle, although also. This afternoon, in the eighth celebration of the San Isidro Fair, Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza, the best and most transcendental bullfighter on horseback in the history of bullfighting, said goodbye to Las Ventas. There were, there are and there will be others (among them his son Guillermo) who occupy a prominent place in the history of rejoneo, but…
Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza has cut off an ear from his second bull in what has been his last bullfight in Las Ventas, where he debuted in 2000 and through whose Puerta Grande he has gone out eight times. He did it in a task from less to more, in which in the final stretch, with no more flags to put up, he gave an exhibition of bullfighting and teaching on horseback, enjoying each step of his mount.
Pablo, who took the alternative in Tafalla in 1989, has opened all the big doors of the bullfighting capitals, such as the Plaza México in his presentation in 1999 and since then he was an idol; the Puerta del Príncipe, on four occasions; that of the Consuls of Nimes; that of Campo Pequenho in Lisbon; of course the one in his Pamplona and those in most of the bullrings on the planet, also the one in the Monumental in Barcelona when there were bulls.
But far beyond the triumphs is how these have arrived, from a bullfighting that broke molds and in which nailing rejones, flags and decorations on the back of the bull is accompanied by a concept of bullfighting where, far from the capers and circus gallops, sobriety, temperance and bringing home-grown luck, among them beauty, prevail.
For all this to occur, the mounts, the horses, are an essential element and among them a fundamental one: Cagancho. Between 1994 and 2002, on his last afternoon, in La México, Cagancho, who was not the prettiest horse, went towards the bull, enjoying himself, enjoying his luck, and came out of it bullfighting with his chest. Cagancho died in 2015, at the age of 30, to the glory of bullfighting on horseback.
Pablo will leave permanently at the end of the season, after fighting at the San Miguel Fair in Seville, but before that he will do so in other places, including Bilbao, where he is also an idol, and, of course, Pamplona on July 6. In recent years he has been criticized for not entering into competition with the other great figure of the last decade, Diego Ventura. Without a doubt, the competition of both on the same poster would have been of great importance but at least there is one new card: his son Guillermo, overwhelming and in continuous evolution.
The proof was today, cutting off two ears at the end of the afternoon after a complete, dedicated and exciting fight in a celebration in which Lea Vicens has not had any luck in handling the final segment. They carried Guillermo on their shoulders and Pablo, her father, was the living image of happiness.