At eight o’clock in the morning, the first running of the bulls (without setbacks and as fast as running of the bulls are now, with non-slip surfaces on the asphalt) and then I have lunch, music, giants and big heads, food with friends who meet again from year to year… and! to the bulls!, something that, by the way, was about to not happen, because just an hour before the start of the celebration of the sky it did not rain nails but it did rain water and hail, elements that already forced to suspend the bullfighting of the previous afternoon when there was a bull left to fight. After a while the storm stopped and, the ring being safeguarded by a tarpaulin, when the time for the paseillo arrived, everything was in order. The square was full and it would continue until the 14th, the stands in the shade and in the sun (the peñas) uniformed in white and red (and multicolored capelines, due to the rain) and a collective joy that is a roar when the bullfighters step on the sand . In the Box, the recently released mayoress as president, received with a very bullfighter division of opinion.
In the corrals, the bulls that were run in the morning, because without a run in the afternoon the confinement would not exist. A no-brainer, of course, but one that some insist on denying. The herd announced for the first bullfight on foot, after the bullfight and the rejones of the two previous days, La Palmosilla, was awarded as the best at the 2022 Fair and before her two bullfighters hardened in a thousand battles (and not very well treated by the bullfighting establishment) Rafaelillo and Manuel Escribano and the young Mexican Leo Valadez. Exactly the same poster of bulls and bullfighters from the previous year. The House of Mercy, owner of the arena and manager of it, is exemplary in many things, also in bullfighting.
Rafaelillo offered the public the bull that opened the square, which he received with two long knee changes in the third. The man from La Palmosilla was not in excess of strength and the Murcian bullfighter raised the task on his right hand with crutches that, due to the aforementioned strength and condition of the bull, without surrender, were lackluster, as they were when he attempted it with the left-handed The lunge, not very far in placement but of rapid effect.
Snack time (the ajoarriero and other delicacies on the menu) and the fourth came out, a chest in his anatomy but that did not point to great happiness either, although it did have a certain dose of nobility. Rafaelillo, cuco he, once again toasted the audience, distracted by other tasks, a task in which he alternated series for the two pitons, being better those that were for the left. A couple of rudeness touching the piton, a puncture and a good lunge put the signature. Smiling, the Murcian bullfighter seemed sure that what was done would be rewarded, but what was said, the crowd was on to something else.
Before the clubs sang their great hit “El Rey”, Manuel Escribano went to the gate of the pigsty to greet the second of the afternoon with a long change, a constant of the bullfighter from Gerena whatever the bullring and the livestock. As is the fact that he assumes the third of the banderillas, luck that he dominates and in which he contributes a dose of spectacularity and, also, risk.
The bull, barely punished as it passed by the horse, moved but did so at will, without zeal after the crutch that Escribano firmly presented to him. Disorderly onslaughts that at times he was able to channel into meritorious series by the two pitons, as well as merit had the ballerinas looking at the line prior to the supreme luck, which was the only blur. That, the sword thing, in Pamplona is, for better and for worse, a non-negotiable issue. And they got angry.
Fifth in the afternoon, penitent Notary again before the bullpen and long changed to song. The matador shouted, telling the pikeman to measure the punishment. He ignored the beaver’s and the bull galloped in banderillas at supersonic speed, which made it difficult to meet at the time of nailing.
On his knees in the media and crutch in his right hand to link a first round that had its merit. Already standing, naturally, the bull, which had reduced its momentum, followed the red cloth with nobility and humiliation and Escribano carried it with temperance. Adjusted Bernadinas and again the sword was his cross.
Leo Valadez is a young bullfighter who little by little is establishing his bullfighting, in which the variety in the repertoire of luck, especially with the cape, is now accompanied by a greater weight and rest. If in his first years of alternative (he took it in 2017) he also put up banderillas, now not anymore but his evolution is clear. He also has value. Of all this he left evidence in his work to the third, outcast and lackluster, with whom he fought with decision and head, until he achieved very meritorious round and natural, as well as the knee-caps. The blow fell into the bass and the possible ear disappeared.
Smoothness in the sets with feet together of Leo Valadez who closed the celebration, not very beyond strength either. And I wore the remove cloak on the back. On his knees in the third and moment of trouble when joining, without consequences. He went to the media and linked a round series very temperate, as it was when he put his crutch to the left. Always very firm, the hydrocalid right-hander built a task that he rounded off finishing it as he started it, on his knees, this time with better results. He went after the sword straight but the placement was not the best and he had to reach for the pith, which got stuck.
Thus ended an afternoon in which the bulls of La Palmosilla were not up to the task of the previous year and the swords were left with these the possibility of victory.
