Who was the true San Isidro triunfador?

Morante de la Puebla on shoulders at Las Ventas (Image from Plaza1)

The jury put together by the Las Ventas empresa, Plaza1, duly acclaimed Alejandro Talavante as the triunfador of San Isidro, the extremeño having left through the Puerta Grande after cutting two ears from the Victoriano del Río bull ‘Misterio’ on the month-long feria’s opening day. But how many people will really look back on Talavante’s performance that day (which many critics said was generously rewarded) as the highlight of this year’s San Isidro?

Talavante and ‘Misterio’ on May 9

Part of the problem is the feria’s structure, for, although the Beneficencia and In Memoriam corridas are advertised and held at the same time of year, neither is officially part of the San Isidro feria and are outside the feria abono. (The Corrida de la Prensa, on the other hand, is considered part of the feria.)

This year, the Beneficencia and In Memoriam corridas both saw a torero leave through the Puerta Grande, but the Plaza1 panel was technically correct in concluding that Talavante, as the only torero to be carried out through the Puerta Grande during the official feria, was the San Isidro triunfador.

Those with a more generous view of what constitutes San Isidro might argue that the true triunfador was Morante de la Puebla, awarded single ears from two juanpedros in the Beneficencia, or Borja Jiménez, who achieved his third Puerta Grande triumph in two years on the last bull of the In Memoriam corrida, this year honouring Andrés Victorino Martín and featuring Victorino Martín bulls.

Molinete from Morante de la Puebla during the Beneficencia (Image from entretoros.com)

The two ears awarded to Morante on June 3, strongly petitioned for by the public, also drew criticism. Several commentators pointed out that his second bull had been felled by a bajonazo that would normally prevent an ear being awarded in Madrid. Indeed, it was argued, the attainment of a Puerta Grande exit and the excited scenes that followed (only the police preventing Morante being carried on shoulders all the way to the Hotel Wellington) was more a reward for the matador’s career as a whole than for his performance that day.

Morante’s 2025 temporada to date has certainly been surprisingly strong, coming as it did after a desultory and interrupted 2024 season and a winter of electric shock treatment in Portugal to try and overcome the matador’s mental problems. As I write this (before Toledo’s Corpus corrida), he has left bullrings on shoulders on half of his appearances, the most impressive performances coming at Sevilla, Jerez de la Frontera, Aranjuez, Madrid and Salamanca (where he was even awarded a tail). As far as the Las Ventas spectators were concerned, he should have already cut an ear on his first bull in the May 28 Corrida de la Prensa, only the president obstructing the majority petition. The sevillano’s toreo - both with the capote and muleta - has become more distinctive than ever; there is no other torero anything like him, and it is no surprise that he is drawing more and more people to the plazas - a tendency that is likely to increase after his televised Beneficencia triumph.

Borja Jiménez

Borja Jiménez, on the other hand, whilst currently a favourite of spectators in general, has been experiencing a difficult season in the important plazas. Injured during Valencia’s Las Fallas, he achieved nothing at Zaragoza’s Feria de San Jorge, cut a fortunate two ears in one of his two Feria de Abril appearances, only secured a vuelta at Córdoba, and had a disastrous encerrona with victorinos at Nîmes in which he received one ovation and five silences. In Madrid, his three appearances all came at the June tail-end of the San Isidro period. He cut an ear from a strong performance on his first afternoon with jandillas, but was the least impressive participant in the Beneficencia, both his faenas ending in silence. The In Memoriam corrida, back with victorinos, was Borja’s last chance to make an impression in Madrid, and this he did on his final bull, a faena executed primarily with the left hand and a strong estocada, albeit caída y trasera, leading to his award of two ears, demanded by most in the tendidos although the president was later criticised for being over-generous (similar criticism being directed at his decision to give the bull concerned a vuelta en arrastre).

So much for Madrid’s Puerta Grande triumphs. Depending on their individual sensibilities, other aficionados might point to the likes of Fortes, Miguel Ángel Perera, Sebastián Castella, Tomás Rufo, Ignacio Uceda Leal, Fernando Adrián, Isaac Fonseca, Román, Pablo Aguado or Víctor Hernández as being the feria triunfador, these matadors’ toreo having left a strong impression whatever their end results.

The bulls of Madrid

On the bull front, the problems with ‘el toro de Madrid’ - a large, heavy animal with huge horns, impressive to look at but not really suited to today’s toreo - remain. There was an interesting discussion about the bulls amongst members of the Club Taurino of London during the feria, one member stating that Madrid and other first class plazas show bulls with better trapio or better horn conformation than anywhere else, while another, although agreeing with this statement, said that too many were “fuera de tipo” to allow figuras to triumph. It’s not just the figuras - ask Clemente and Samuel Navalón, for instance, whose Madrid bulls made success there near-impossible: what modern toreo requires is a strong, mobile bull of moderate weight, a neck that enables the head to be lowered and horns that are not so large as to make pases enganchados a near certainty.

The Jandilla bull ‘Vid’ (Image from Plaza1)

Feria prizes for best bull were shared between the only two bulls to be given a vuelta en arrastre over the course of the month - ‘Brigadier-2’, of Pedraza de Yeltes on May 14 and the victorino 'Milhijas' at the June 10 In Memoriam corrida, and ‘Frenoso’ of Victoriano del Río (see my earlier article ‘The stars of San Isidro’s first week’) while there was general agreement that Jandilla supplied the best string of bulls, of which two - ‘Vid’ and ‘Zafio’ were particularly outstanding. Other bulls of note were Victoriano del Río’s ‘Misterio’ and ‘Alabardero’, Fuente Ymbro’s ‘Amargado’ and ‘Comisario’, the valdefresno ‘Pomposico’, El Parralejo’s ‘Gestor’, the José Escolar animal ‘Sereno’ and the Torrealta sobrero ‘Torbellino’.