Sevilla, May 6: A descabellado triumph

With Sevilla’s Feria casetas functioning from today, we had the ganadero triunfador of last year’s Feria de Abril, Santiago Domecq, fielding bulls for Manuel Escribano, Miguel Ángel Perera and Borja Jiménez.

Manuel Escribano has spent much of his career, based on corridas of toros duros, trying to claim a place amongst the more ‘commercial’ carteles; today was a big opportunity for him to cement a spot in such corridas. Unfortunately for him, it didn’t work out and the Escribano of the victorinada here of just three days ago was a distant memory, today his being a victim of events rather than controller of destiny. He met his first bull a portagayola, but ducked away from the encounter. The bull then turned on him very quickly, so Manuel had to drop the capote and run. Recovered after a short while, he produced verónicas and a media. The bull was keen to the horse, the picador earning applause, and a quite of chicuelinas and a revolera from Perera showed the bull’s qualities. Escribano received an ovation at the end of the second tercio, with two pairs of sticks, the last a quiebro with the banderillas placed al violín, being particularly good. Unfortunately, the animal slowed greatly iearly n the faena, and, although there were some decent single derechazos and naturales from Escribano, the faena went by without transmission. The sevillano killed with a pinchazo and estocada, receiving silence, while the bull left the plaza to applause.

Escribano’s second was another animal sin fuerzas. He gave it some fine capotazos that only produced a ripple of applause and had difficulty lining up the bull for the picador. The response to las banderillas was stronger, particularly for the final pair where Manuel, after starting from a sitting position on the estribo, made a quiebro feint and was right up against the boards when the rehiletes were placed in the bull. But it was a similar story to last time come the faena - some good curving passes on each hand, but no emotion, Escribano struggling too to bring his series to an end. Following the kill, there was silence for bull and man: opportunity gone.

Although he cut an ear here on Friday, Borja Jiménez has not performed at the standard he showed here last year and has disappointed this spectator. He gave some pleasing opening capework to his first bull that contrasted with a poor quite from Escribano, but the condition of his bull in the faena (possibly as a result of an over-long second vara) meant that linked passes were not possible. Some of the individual muletazos were of merit, but there was no chance of success and Borja closed with a pinchazo, media estocada and three descabellos, hearing an aviso. His approach of standing at some distance from the bull for a volapié kill has been criticised at length, but, for some reason, he is sticking with it.

At one point, it looked like we might be in for a repeat of Friday, with a triumph by Borja on the corrida’s last bull. We had another a portagayola failure, but Jiménez recovered for some expressive verónicas and chicuelinas and a media verónica that closed to an ovation. The bull gave the picador’s horse a huge shove on its first entry and very nearly overturned horse and rider, Tito Sandoval earning applause for keeping his mount upright and piccing well too. Jiménez’s quite comprised some distant chicuelinas and a splendid larga. The second pic was light, and the bull proved very fast and dangerous en banderillas, the sticks being placed singly and the tercio ended early with just three rehiletes in the bull’s hide. Borja began the faena on his knees, then, standing, moved to the left hand early. Derechazos, a molinete back down on his knees, a pase cambiado por la espalda, some low naturales and rather weak chest passes followed before he killed with a pinchazo and bajonazo.

The day’s triunfador was Miguel Ángel Perera, who, together with the Santiago Domecq bull ‘Anárquico’, produced one of the Feria’s finest faenas to date. This was the corrida’s second bull, given some nice opening verónicas although the capote ended up hooked out of Perera’s hands by a horn. Borja Jiménez managed a quite of chicuelinas and a revolera. ‘Anárquico’ was nothing special in the horse and refused to come forward en banderillas, but revealed the sweetest charge in a faena dedicated to the public. Perera began with a sequence of close pases por alto, then took charge with series of stretched and curving derechazos and naturales, the cloth kept low and the bull responding beautifully to it. The lengthy faena ended with some wonderful ojedismo, Miguel Ángel standing on the spot and passing the bull so that it came back to face him, its horns close to his taleguilla, the crowd by now on its feet. The estocada, delivered en la cruz, appeared to herald an award of the bull’s two ears, as did the subsequent descabello, the bull crashing to the ground. But somehow ‘Anárquico’ stood again and three further descabellos and two avisos meant the triumph was lost. Perera received an ovation, while ‘Anárquico’ was given an undeserved vuelta en arrastre - yes, it had shown well in the faena, but not in the other two tercios.

Perera’s veleto second opponent came into the ring strongly, but then proved wayward, the matador eventually collecting it in the capote to take it to the centre of the arena for a media verónica. By the time the second puyazo had entered far along the bull’s back, prompting whistles, the animal had already proved itself to be weak-footed. The faena took place to a baby wailing in a tendido and Miguel Ángel’s early decision to collect the estoque was applauded as it was clear nothing worthwhile was in the offing. The extremeño delivered another strong estocada, receiving palmas, while the bull was dragged out to whistles. This had not been the Santiago Domecq corrida that people were expecting.