Torrestrella - on the way to extinction?

In my book ‘Toros & Toreros’, I feature the ganaderías that have most impressed me over a half-century of viewing corridas, one of which is Torrestrella, until fairly recently overseen by Álvaro Domecq Romero, whose death at the age of 85 was announced earlier this month. Now it appears that the Torrestrella encaste may have died with him.

His father, Álvaro Domecq y Díez, a member of the Domecq sherry family, spent much of his life devoted to the family estates in Andalucía and to bullfighting. After Spain’s Civil War, he indulged his passion for horses and became one of the leading exponents of rejoneo. He also become a notable politician under the Franco regime, being mayor of Jerez from 1952-7, president of the Cádiz regional council from 1957-67, and a member of the Spanish Parliament from 1967-73.

In 1957, don Álvaro established the Torrestrella ganadería, initially declining the opportunity of breeding bulls originating from elsewhere in the Domecq family and opting instead for livestock from Carlos Núñez and animals of Veragua and Ibarra blood from la Viuda de Chica. He later added Domecq blood to the herd from the family’s Jandilla ganadería. This unique blend helped establish Torrestrella as an encaste in its own right. Álvaro Domecq Romero, also a former rejoneador, took on responsibility for the herd after don Álvaro’s death in 2005.

Don Álvaro’s objectives were to combine the consistency and depth of bravura of the Domecq encaste with the long and repetitive charge of the best Núñez animals, looking for transmission, fixity, keenness and nobleza. This took a while to develop, and it was not until the 1970s that the ganadería found favour with the leading toreros. Torrestrella bulls were compact in appearance with well-defined morrillos, substantially horned, and often displayed spectacular coats, the herd appearing in a variety of colours, including melocotón, retinto, castañas and tostadas, frequently with unusual features such as burraco and salpicado, listón and chorreado.

The first impressive string of torrestrellas I saw was at Castellón de la Plana at the beginning of the 1994 temporada – a top cartel featuring Manzanares padre, Joselito and Enrique Ponce. The bulls enabled all three figuras to show their stuff. In 2001, Torrestrella provided the best bulls of the Santander feria, faced by Finito de Córdoba, Victor Puerto and El Juli, then in his third season as a matador de toros. The first bull had both picadors’ horses on the ground at one point! Victor Puerto and El Juli both cut single ears, but I felt it was a shame none of the matadors secured an exit on shoulders, for the Torrestrella mayoral certainly merited that honour that day.

Torrestrellas also played their part in an unusual corrida in Sevilla’s April feria of 2012, when the weather was diabolical from the second faena onwards, the rain sheeting down and the wind so strong it was blowing spectators’ umbrellas inside out! Manolo Díaz El Cordobés, Juan José Padilla and El Fandi were the matadors, all three behaving absolutely professionally in the circumstances and downing each bull with a single swordthrust. El Fandi was particularly outstanding, cutting an ear from an exceptionally good third torrestrella after a faena conducted in a hailstorm, accompanied by thunder and lightning.

In 2017 and ’18, I saw two other excellent strings of torrestrellas, the first at Albacete for Paco Ureña, Rubén Pinar and José Garrido, and the second at Las Rozas (Madrid) for Juan Bautista, Román and Luis David Adame. At Albacete, four of the bulls were applauded on entry and five en arrastre. The fifth, ‘Sabor’, was exceptional, sending the picador’s horse almost horizontal on their first encounter and then charging well in the faena, causing some spectators to call for its indulto before Pinar killed it and claimed its two ears. The bull was awarded a vuelta en arrastre. Ureña cut three ears that afternoon and Garrido one. At Las Rozas, the first torrestrella was a black-and-white burraco; the second was negro; the third (the only bull to noticeably tire in its faena) was a white-and-brown atruchado; the fourth was a black-eared and socked mosqueado; the fifth similar-looking, but with less black; and the sixth another burraco. Two of the bulls were given vueltas en arrastre, Bautista winning four ears and the young Adame two, while Román (tossed badly in Las Ventas the previous day) had a poor afternoon, failing with two bulls from which ears should have been cut.

Rubén Pinar with the torrestrella ‘Sabor’ (Albacete, 2017)

By now, it was clear that the figuras were shunning torrestrellas, finding them too spirited for their liking. In 2020, Álvaro Domecq Romero, disgusted that his bulls hadn’t been included in Sevilla’s temporada that year (a temporada that, due to the Covid epidemic, never happened), said, “The figuras only want to fight four cattle ranches that are repeated in the carteles, and so there is no room for the others. I will follow my current line even if the figuras don’t like it.”

That same year, the ganadero sold his historic Cádiz finca of ‘Los Alburejos’ and the Torrestrella herd was transferred to his nearby ranch of ‘El Carrascal’ once it had been equipped with the necessary infrastructure of fences, pens and a plaza de tientas. In 2022, responsibility for the ganadería was passed to Álvaro Domecq Rivero, son of Álvaro Domecq Romero and also a former rejoneador.

Concerns arise
In hindsight, it seems a collapse was already in the offing. After a triumphant faena with a torrestrella in Huelva in 2021 (although Carlos Crivell commented on the string of bulls at the time, “No hubo presentación digna ni comportamiento encastado”), Morante de la Puebla was prepared to champion the ganadería. But he lost faith the following season. In that 2022 temporada, Torrestrella took part in seven festejos - three corridas, two novilladas and two festejos de rejoneo. It was back in the Feria de Abril, although the bulls were disappointing and Morante, El Juli and Manuel Perera, taking the alternativa, did not manage to cut any ears from them (Morante did win two off a Garcigrande sobrero). At Jerez, with another strong cartel of Morante, Juan Ortega and Andrés Roca Rey, an ear apiece was cut by Morante and Roca Rey and the bulls described as complicated. Two months later in Fuengirola, where just three bulls were run, the results were worse still, El Cordobés receiving an ovation but Morante and Cayetano silence. The season’s highlight for the ganadería was Víctor Cerrato winning three ears from their novillos at Pedrajas de San Esteban.

The following year, no complete corrida of torrestrellas occured, just one four-bull novillada at Pedrajas de San Esteban, a couple of bulls for rejoneo and one bull for David Galván at Algeciras from which he cut an ear. Then, in 2024, Torrestrella was completely absent from festejos, while this year only a four-bull festejo mixto was supported at Mojados (Valladolid), the novillero Pedro Andrés winning two ears from his animal.

Earlier this month, at a tertulia organised by la Asociación El Toro de Madrid, Florencio Fernández Florito, the retiring veedor and mayoral at Madrid’s Las Ventas, asked about the lack of historic ganaderias in the capital’s temporada, commented, “Torrestrella doesn’t have a ganadería now - just a few cows, and that’s it. Last season [2025], two of their bulls came to Madrid; one was fought as a sobrero and the other was sent to the street encierros.”

Álvaro Domecq Rivero has a Facebook page, but it only features horses, which are clearly his main love. Torrestrella’s website claims, “la ganadería de Torrestrella sigue muy viva,” but the text appears to be two years old and certainly, if the ganadería no longer contains any sementales or their frozen semen (the use of which don Álvaro pioneered), the encaste can be said to be on the way to extinction.