Novillada sin picadores, Saturday 12 March, Valencia.
Two-year-olds from Valrubio, a ganaderia with Vega Villar blood, the so called “white feet”. Only one bull showed this heritage by wearing white ankle socks.
Manuel Caballero, from Albacete and the son of… opened the feria with a nice series of veronicas to which the bull reacted. The animal soon ran out of gas and the young albaceteño responded with a faena of at least 100 passes. It was the beginning of a long evening that last almost three hours of mostly boredom. I know I said in the February edition of this newsletter that to see novilleros perform at the beginning of their career was like seeing the future of bullfighting. According to what we saw this evening, the future didn’t look very bright although I wouldn’t blame this on the young lads entirely. Though noble, their opponents didn’t live up to their heritage (apart from two who charged the cloth well) and had very little stamina.
Manuel Caballero received one ear, as did “Jarocho” while Frenchman Lenny Martins would have seen his bull return to the corral alive but it dropped dead at the third aviso. Nek Romero, Aaron Rull and Joel Ramirez went home empty handed knowing that they had made their debut in this first category bullring to open Fallas 2022. Not a mean feat.
Cronica de Pieter Hildering
Fotografia de Mateo de Tauroimagenplus.com
