Madrid, May 9: San Isidro’s first day brings Talavante’s sixth Puerta Grande

From the elegance of La Maestranza to the bear-pit of Las Ventas…

The reason for the change, apart from taking advantage of the overlapping nature of the ferias of Abril and San Isidro this late Easter year, was to see today’s confirmación de alternativa of Clemente. And it has to said that, despite not winning any ears, the Frenchman handled himself well. The toro de la confirmación was a huge-horned 585 kilo product of Victoriano del Río that pleased Tendido 7 but did not look promising for toreo. Clemente managed to give it some cape passes although, unsurprisingly, some were spoilt by the capote snagging on those large horns. The piccing was far back on the bull’s back, but there were some good banderillas placed by Juan José Domínguez and Clemente dedicated the faena to the public. The Frenchman’s muleta work was impressive, Clemente persisting in bringing off committed passes despite the bull’s head often being held at chest height. A cogida was almost inevitable, so big was the gap between what Clemente was trying to achieve and the qualities of the bull before him, and it duly caught him, Clemente being at the bull’s mercy for some considerable time, although fortunately its horn had pierced his jacket rather than his flesh. The matador had his jacket removed and returned to the fray, producing more decent passes at some risk. An ear was on the cards, but that disappeared with a poor sword in the bull’s side and then a bajonazo. There was applause for the bull while Clemente took saludos to an ovation.

Clemente was fortunate his jacket was caught on the bull’s horn and not him: it didn’t prevent him from performing strongly all evening

The Frenchman tried hard to succeed once more with the last of the day’s bulls, which was allowed to go from one picador to another en varas and was another unpropitious foe. Again, Clemente’s swordwork was poor, a media estocada, aviso and six descabellos ending things to silence for man and bull. The critics were generally favourable after the corrida, being impressed with Clemente’s toreo and attitude, bu there’s no telling whether today’s showing will open up the Spanish market to an important torero who is currently more or less confined to France.

Alejandro Talavante showed well with capote and muleta

The day’s headlines were captured by Alejandro Talavante, who gained a somewhat generous two ears (and thus the Puerta Grande) for his performance with his second bull - the extremeño’s first such success in Madrid in six years. His capework to this animal was tentative, a quite by Juan Ortega patchy, but Talavante began the faena with a delicate sequence of templado passes, citing on one horn and then the other. Moving the cloth to the left hand early on, he produced pleasing naturales, some of them de frente, and continued on this horn for most of the faena. More slow passes followed: this was a Talavante engrossed in his artistry, far different from the pueblerino torero one saw at Sevilla a few days ago. The estocada was a strong one, slowly delivered, and the president, faced with a noisy petition from the public, granted the second ear at the last minute, to Talavante’s evident delight. His earlier Victoriano del Río bull was given some promising varied capework, but came to the faena bucking. Alejandro managed some slow muletazos, but there was little transmission and 7 were whistling. Talavante killed to pitos for the bull and silence.

Verónica from Juan Ortega

Silence was Juan Ortega’s lot today, too, after protracted swordwork on each of his animals. The sevillano produced some good, templados derechazos to his first bull, but 7 complained he didn’t cross enough. The highlight on this bull was competition in quites between an out-of-turn Talavante and Ortega, Talavante performing verónicas and a serpentina, while Ortega responded with chicuelinas and a superb media verónica. His second bull (from Toros de Cortés, as was Clemente’s second) hooked with its right horn, but this didn’t stop Juan from giving derechazos until he received a near-cornada. A further huge mix-up in naturales persuaded Ortega to collect the estoque.