Dolores Aguirre bulls for
Uceda Leal, Francisco Marco & Paulita.
On paper this corrida seemed to bring together a
promising string of bulls, and some underwhelming toreros. Of course, anyone
who faces a bull deserves my respect; however, it is also incumbent upon the
aficionado to, respectfully, opine on the relative worth of the toreros. To my
mind, Uceda has been a dignified, elegant, but inconsistent torero; Francisco
Marco appears as the token local in Pamplona and several other northern ferias;
and Paulita has found a space in these cartels after thirteen years of
trying and some recent small time triumphs. Therefore, the trio did not fill me
with promise. Dolores Aguirre bulls, on the other hand, generally serve up a
varied and interesting spectacle. They have a reputation as being tough,
however, I have enjoyed many a noble and classy Dolores.
The first three bulls followed a similar pattern.
Each of them was noble and mobile; their charges were not vigorous, but could
be profound and classy if the muleta was presented to them correctly.
Unfortunately, none of the toreros was up to the task, and the three faenas
foundered among the doubts of each of the performers.
Uceda’s bull had an edge of mansedumbre, but came
and went well enough to allow for a faena. However, Uceda never managed to fix
it on his muleta, and the chance of success was lost among the numerous flaps
of this muleta.
Francisco Marco lacked the wherewithal to
consistently torear his bull properly. The odd enganchon and frequent doubts
about his placing prevented anything more that the odd good pass to this good
bull. On the few occasions that Marco did muster the decisiveness to stay still
and link his passes, the bull responded with profound charges. Such moments
were, unfortunately few and far between. The Pamplona crowd were feeling
generous and indulged him with an ovation.
Similarly, Paulita was only able to perform
inconsistently with his classy third bull. Perhaps backing up his recent minor
triumphs, Paulita was more confident than Marco and managed two or three
worthwhile series. However, these were interspersed in a sea of doubt as the
bull exhausted its charges on passes that were not to the level that it
deserved.
Uceda spent little energy on his second bull. He
opted four three pics, when the bull did not necessarily require them, and
performed a short faena de aliño – three or four half-hearted doblones that did
not serve to dominate the bull, were the limited prologue to the estocada. On
one side, I would rather a short faena that a torero wasting our time posturing
before a bull without success. However, this bull did not seem so bad as to
solely merit doblones.
Francisco Marco had another fruitless performance
with the fifth bull. It was not as classy as his first and had the added
inconvenience of angry casta – however, he might had been able to build a faena
by standing up to the bull with firmness. Another, wasted opportunity, but it
would be overly critical to expect anything further from a torero facing his
first corrida of the season.
The final act of this sad corrida continued the
established theme. The bull stayed short in the opening capotazos. Rather than
seeking to remedy this defect with judicious capework, Paulita ordered
his picador to give the bull two hard pics. Miraculously, this did not
completely destroy the bull. It still had the ability to give a few good charges
to the muleta. However, the torero was not able to fully extract these
qualities and the corrida ended with another non-entity of a faena.
I wrote the opening paragraph before the corrida
started, I am sad to say I was proved right. The bulls were clearly superior to
the toreros. A trio of toreros that have already said most of their piece in
the fiesta. Given the reduced number of corridas, and thus reduced
opportunities to young up an coming toreros, it would be suitable of
questioning the wisdom of hiring these veterans in decline (what a difference
to, for example, Miguel Abellán, who’s toreo displayed maturity and development
twenty four hours earlier). I am not saying that this was a great corrida, but
rather one did not develop as it might due to the toreros’ shortcomings. An
opportunity that they wasted. I, for one, would have enjoyed seeing these bulls
with a set of promising youngsters, or proven toreros in their prime.
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