Local hero

In my book Toros & Toreros, I write of a number of memorable faenas I have seen from toreros on their home ground - Rafael de Paula in Jerez, Manzanares padre in Alicante, Emilio Muñoz in Sevilla, Pepín Jiménez in Lorca, Nimeño II in Nîmes, Finito de Córdoba and Chiquilín in Córdoba, Enrique Ponce and Vicente Barrera in Valencia, Juan Bautista in Arles, and Diego Urdiales in Tudela and Logroño. Indeed, the latter has gained somewhat of a reputation as a matador who is best seen in the north of Spain - Bilbao, Logroño and his true home town of Arnedo.

In similar fashion, Málaga has played a vital part in the career of the matador Saúl Jiménez Fortes. Born in the city on 11 January 1990, Saúl grew up in a taurine ambiente, his mother being the former novillera Mari Fortes and his father the banderillero Gaspar Jiménez. As a boy, despite his suffering from epilepsy, he enrolled in Málaga’s escuela taurina, where his mother was a teacher, and money earned from selling cushions at the city’s bullring was put towards his first traje de luces. He performed in public for the first time on his sixteenth birthday, debuted with picadors just over three years later, and gave up studies in industrial engineering in favour of a taurine career.

Saúl took the alternativa during Bilbao’s 2011 feria but soon gained a reputation as an injury-prone torero. Amongst his several woundings, he received a cornada grave in the throat from a bull of Salvador Domecq whilst killing at Madrid in 2015 and another, also in the throat, at Vitigudino (Salamanca) the following year, after which he lay in a coma for three days. A bull of Conde de Mayalde fractured his leg during Madrid’s 2018 Feria de Otoño, and he underwent six operations in 2019 to deal with bone infections related to that injury.

Fortes’ serious goring in the throat during Madrid’s 2015 Feria de San Isidro (above). During this decade, he gained a reputation as being one of the most frequently injured of matadors (below)

But, during this period of frequent injuries, Saúl still had successful afternoons in Málaga. He was triunfador of the city’s 2016 and 2018 ferias, while, in 2017, he fought six bulls on one afternoon in La Malagueta, receiving a cornada with two 15cm trajectories in the thigh during the lidia of the fourth animal, but returning from the infirmary to kill the fifth and sixth and ending the festejo with two ears to his credit after the presidencia had refused to concede a number of others the spectators had petitioned for.

With 2019’s injury-affected season followed on by Covid’s shortening of Spain’s 2020 and 2021 temporadas, Fortes found himself effectively having to start all over again from 2022. It was difficult to obtain contracts, although Málaga remained faithful to him. That year, his appearance there resulted in another serious goring, but in 2023 he was proclaimed feria triunfador once more, and a convincing performance in a mano a mano with Andrés Roca Rey in 2024 (one of only two corridas for Saúl in Spain that year) maintained that status and finally reopened the gates of the main feria circuit to him. In 2025, he appeared in 21 corridas in Europe, going out on shoulders at Marbella, Pamplona, Baza and, of course, Málaga, while his more mature, classically inclined, approach to toreo pleased the demanding spectators of Las Ventas, with Fortes granted a vuelta there on two occasions.

Despite the paucity of triumphs outside Málaga, Jiménez Fortes has been pleasing aficionados with his classically inclined toreo with both capote and muleta

This year, the contract numbers have reduced - he has fought 11 corridas to date and has been announced for two others at the time of writing - and the triumphs have been few and far between. But he began this month strongly with an exit on shoulders at Villanueva de Córdoba and has, once again, earned the status of triunfador of Málaga’s feria. In two televised corridas from La Malagueta on consecutive days (August 20 and 21), Saúl cut a rather fortunate three ears from Núñez del Cuvillo bulls (his fellow citizens opting to ignore his poor swordwork in favour of the fine toreo that preceded it), but then followed that up with an excellent faena of curving and templados muletazos to the bull ‘Borracho’ of Victorino Martín, killing it well to win a further two ears. These performances alone should see the malagueño enjoy a decent temporada in 2027, when, doubtless, he will be intent on performing well in his home city once again.