The announcement of Aarón Palacio’s September alternativa at Nîmes (following the similar ceremony for Marco Pérez at the town’s Pentecost feria) has reminded me of the time, not so long ago, when the French plaza hosted no less than three alternativas in its May feria.

The 2015 and ‘16 temporadas proved particularly promising in terms of novilleros and in 2016 Simon Casas opted to put on alternativas for Álvaro Lorenzo (May 14), Ginés Marín (May 15 morning) and Varea (May 15 afternoon). The three had mixed fortunes - Álvaro Lorenzo cut an ear while his padrino El Juli left through the Puerta de los Cónsules; Ginés Marín cut an ear from his first bull, but was gored by his second; and Varea had to make do with two ovations.

As matadores de toros, the three have become a lost generation. The mentally fragile Jonathan Blázquez Varea (to my mind, the most promising of the three) was the first to depart the scene. As I recount in ‘Toros & Toreros’, taken on by Alberto García for the 2017 season, Varea was given eight opportunities to prove himself. By the temporada’s end, he had managed to achieve only one exit on shoulders and had cut a total of five ears; he’d consolidated a reputation for artistry, but also for irregularity and poor swordwork, and García dropped him.

Without an apoderado for 2018, at the end of a disappointing afternoon in Valencia’s July feria, Varea grabbed some scissors and, despite the entreaties of his cuadrilla, ordered a peón to cut off his coleta. There was to be no return, Varea commenting a year later, “My mind has caused me damage many times […] I always looked for that special sensitivity in my toreo, and, when I didn’t find it, I grew anxious and low. In the end, in this world, as in life, the person who has mental stability is the one who ends up winning the lottery in front of the bull. My brain only processed ingratitude, wasted time, vanished effort…”.

As a guest of honour at the Club Taurino of London’s Anniversary Lunch one year, Álvaro Lorenzo performed the most beautiful and impressive toreo de salón I’ve seen. His 2017 season comprised 12 corridas, from which he won 11 ears, and he then decided to leave the Lozano family, which had backed him from early in his career, and take on Nemesio Matías as his manager for 2018. A three-ear triumph at Las Ventas that April served as a springboard to propel him to 36 corridas by the year’s end. Returning to the Lozano family for 2019, with ex-matador Fernando as his apoderado, Álvaro’s contract numbers dropped to 21, along with the level of his performances. Then he managed just four appearances in the Covid year of 2020.

Come 2021, Álvaro had 10 engagements, but, apart from the first of these during the Vistalegre San Isidro feria (when he cut an ear), the corridas were in minor plazas. His performances, however, were generally strong ones, and he even won symbolic ears and a tail at Las Rozas at the season’s end when a bull of Garcigrande was indultado. Over the winter, he signed up with Pedro Rodríguez Tamayo and Santiago Ellauri, linked with the Sevilla empresa Pagés, as his managers. 2022 accordingly saw a return to the premier bullrings - Lorenzo appearing at Zaragoza (twice), Sevilla, Madrid’s Las Ventas (thrice), Pamplona, Valencia (twice) and Nîmes and cutting single ears at 60% of these festejos - in a European temporada of 18 contracts.

Another indulto occurred the following year in a successful afternoon at Villarrubia de los Ojos, but the toledano only had four appearances in first class rings - one in Sevilla, where he cut an ear, and three in Madrid, receiving vueltas on each occasion - in a temporada of 14 corridas, splitting with his managers mid-season. Last year, with no apoderado, he had just two corridas, cutting ears at Madridejos but receiving silence at Las Ventas. He signed with Puerta Grande Gestión and Manolo Campuzano in November and so far this year has had three corridas, two corridas mixtas and a festival, winning ears on five of the six occasions, the most important being his Feria de la Comunidad appearance in Madrid when he received a vuelta after his first bull and cut an ear from his second.

So perhaps all is not yet over for Álvaro Lorenzo, a classical torero but one who can come across as a bit of a cold fish, and a matador who, to date, has shown a tendency to cut single ears from his bulls, but rarely two.

As things stand mid-way through the 2025 temporada, Ginés Marín is experiencing a similar year to Álvaro Lorenzo’s 2023 season. Although he has had appearances in Zaragoza, Sevilla, Madrid and Pamplona, he can only claim one ear and a vuelta from these plazas, and, although he has cut six ears from his other four corridas to date, he is finding himself left out of several ferias that have been his bread-and-butter in recent years. Parting ways with Carlos Zúñiga hijo after just one season, 2024, when he finished 14th in the escalafón on 28 corridas - with two-ear faenas at Aranjuez, Plasencia, Zamora, Santander, Huesca, Roa de Duero, Palencia and Navaluenga - the extremeño is now managed by the empresario and ganadero Álvaro Polo, and appears to be on the downward path of minor apoderados and fewer festejos.

*Ginés Marín: natural ayudado de rodillas*

In 2018, Ginés finished 8th in the escalafón (one place behind Álvaro Lorenzo) on 35 corridas; in 2019, with 42 corridas, he nearly headed the escalafón, finishing second with one contract less than El Juli; but, when bullfighting resumed after Covid, he was only 12th in both 2021 and 2022, with 22 and 30 corridas respectively, and 15th in 2023 with 27 festejos to his name. Since 2017, when he triumphed at Valencia, Madrid, Pamplona, Dax, Nîmes and Zaragoza, his exits on shoulders from 1st class plazas have been few and far between - Las Ventas in 2019 and on 2021’s Día de Hispanidad; Zaragoza in 2022; and Sevilla and Pamplona in 2023. Prior to signing with Zuñiga, Marín was managed by Curro Vázquez in 2022 and ‘23; Jesús and Jacinto Ortiz in 2020 and ‘21; and José Cutiño of FIT from the time he was a novillero.

Popular in 2nd and 3rd class bullrings because of the variety he has always shown in his toreo, Ginés Marín has been the most successful of the three novilleros who took the alternativa in Nîmes in that spring of 2016, but it currently looks like they will all end up as minor footnotes in the history of toreo.

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