The third and last bullfight of the San Ignacio de Azpeitia Fair had a luxury poster and, despite the loss of the injured Morante de la Puebla, La Bombonera (which is how the arena from Azpeitia is known) registered an absolute sellout that hung the “There are no seats” at the box office, something that has the added value that the economic benefits of the Fair go to welfare and charitable work.
Bulls from the Cádiz ranch of La Palmosilla were announced, which offered a great game the previous year, and a shortlist in which Daniel Luque (who already fought, and very well, in the first celebration) replaced Morante, accompanied in the paseillo by Paco Urena and Juan Ortega.
The bull that opened the arena was returned to the pigsties due to manifest laziness and the hat made of the same iron (just made of cloth, like the rest of those that later came out, except for the fifth) offered noble attacks that Paco Ureña led with a good hand. The one from La Palmosilla did not have enough strength but Ureña managed to carry it with length, standing out in the natural ones. The sword blurred it.
The room also lacked strength and chaste and rammed disorderly, once well, another time not so much. Ureña, very firm, endured the stoppages and on the basis of this he achieved crutches of great merit given the conditions of La Palmosilla. The Murcian bullfighter contributed everything so that the task could take flight and it was precisely at the end that, citing head-on and feet together, he extracted naturals that raised the tone of the long fretting. Again, the sword did not work. Very lackluster bull and nothing to object (except the sword) to what Ureña did
Daniel Luque is Azpeitia’s favorite bullfighter (eight walks contemplate him) and also of the neighboring French fans of Dax, Bayona or Mont de Marsan, who traveled to the town where San Ignacio de Loyola was born to see him. The Gerena bullfighter found himself with a bull that basically (lacked strength) and shape (the aforementioned rag) only gave him the option of muletear with relaxation and solvency but without the emotion being able to arise. With the sword, a cannon.
The great deficit of the La Palmosilla run, the lack of strength, manifested itself again in the fifth and Luque could not stretch with the cape. A pity, being a bullfighter who handles it so well. Brilliant the third of banderillas in which the bull charged with some joy and with Iván García and Jesús Arruga forced to salute after banderillado superiorly.
Softness and crutch at mid-height in the forehands at the start of the task, a superb change of hand and a superb chest one.
Pulse in the wrists, waist that accompanies and sounds the Nerva paso doble.
With his left hand, a prodigy of mettle, almost mime and even more. Luque’s goldsmith’s work, which left sublime naturals and a round series that, a miracle of tempering, the bull took with humiliation and dedication.
The final luquesinas put a icing on the cake crowned with a kiss on the head of the brave and noble specimen of La Palmosilla and with a lunge from which the bull bent at the feet of a fully fledged bullfighter. The two ears was the just reward. The ovation to the bull in the drag, too.
Juan Ortega appeared in Azpeitia and his visiting card was half a dozen verónicas de arte y compás and a celestial stocking. Jorge Fuentes placed two excellent pairs of banderillas after the processing of the tercio de varas and the start of the work was a waste of bullfighting.
Crutch on the left and the bull that charged reincarnated. In the round something better and the bullfighter from Triana looking for the mettle that the bull did not have. When he got it, the crutch had his that his, the imprint of his bullfighting. As bullfighting had with two hands walking the bull and some with feet together, always well above what the bull offered. He left a half high that was enough despite the fact that the bull was slow to turn and greeted an ovation.
The sixth, like the previous one with Luque, deprived us of tasting Ortega’s cape bullfighting again and the first tercios passed without pain or glory.
Ortega was brought out with flavor and bullfighting to the media to start a task that could not be in a divine way, because the wishes of the bullfighter crashed in the bad condition of the bull, very lackluster.
Daniel Luque came out on his shoulders and revalidated a mutual idyll with a square and a hobby that, rightly, have made him their own.
Thus ended the Azpeitia Fair (EHBildu town hall), so unique, in the Urola valley, at the foot of the Izarraitz massif, in the heart of Euskadi. Where every afternoon of bullfights between the third and fourth, the gangs in the ring, unmasked, respectful as the standing public, the Municipal Band plays the funeral Zortziko of Aldalur in memory of the Deba banderillero, José Ventura Laka, mortally gored by a Navarrese breed bull in the Plaza Mayor of Azpeitia in August 1841.
Azpeitia in which the nuns from the convent next to La Bombonera lean out of the windows, see (intuit) what is happening in the arena and, if it comes to it, wave white handkerchiefs asking for ears.
