The view from
the sofa, my thoughts on corridas I have watched on TV.
Miura Bulls for Eduardo Dávila Miura, Manuel Escribano & Iván Fandiño.
The classic Miura corrida to close la Feria de Abril. The
Miuras are celebrating the seventy-fifth straight year lidiando in la feria,
would the bulls be on message and join the celebration? For starters, he
ganaderos nephew, Dávila Miura, was appearing to help commemorate the
anniversayry – I have no issue with this type of one-off appearances for
special occasions, as long as the torero is in the correct physical and
emotional state to give a dignified performance. Dávila seems in decent shape,
let us see how he faces up to the family bulls. Escribano would be looking to
build on his triumph with the Victorinos and continue to carve his niche among
the corridas duras. Fandiño has suffered a tough start to 2015 and seems to
still be suffering psychologically from his risky play in Madrid, it will be
tough to overcome the challenge posed by the Miuras with low morale. I laud
Fandiño’s early season bet to face a variety of less popular encastes, he
needed to take a different route towards figura status, but the time has come
to triumph with these bulls.
Dávila’s opening bull
displayed a steady gallop during the opening tercios, a seemingly manageable
bull, for Miura at least. During the muleta third its gallop turned into a
short charge and the bull developed the typical Miura difficulties: it was
always hooking away from the lure and it charged in jumps. Dávila was dignified
and measured, although he did suffer the odd scare. Most of the faena was built
around the right hand, the bull’s left horn was too tough, and carried the
interest that a lidia to a Miura should always have.
The fourth bull of the
afternoon charged well into Eduardo’s capote allowing him a series of well
linked and low veronicas, it must have been tough to face the powerful and repetitive
opening charges of the Miura, but Dávila did so admirably. The bull continued
its emotive charge throughout the opening tercios and went long and low into
Javer Ambel’s capote during the brega at banderillas, credit also to Joselito
Rus and Alberto Zayas who performed a clean tercio. Dávila opened his faena
with a series of well linked doblones, capped with an excellent chest pass that
was greeted by a strong ole from the crowd. The bull continued with its noble
and repetitive charge throughout the faena de muleta and it allowed Dávila to
perform a long and clean faena de muleta, which, while technically solid,
perhaps lacked the emotive peaks that a bull like this deserved. Nevertheless,
he killed well and cut an ear that was as much an award to the good estocada,
his career as a whole and dignified display today than to the strict taurine
merits of this faena. Many toreros have appeared for a day with easier bulls
and given worse performances, Dávila was well prepared for today and gave a
good afternoon with the family bulls.
Escribano (who had left
his calling card with a clean quite by saltilleras to Dávila’s bull) greeted
the second bull with a tight larga cambiada in the tercio followed by a nicely
linked series of veronicas. Manuel’s tercio de banderillas was well executed
and jovial, his typical set list of a couple of pairs de poder a poder with the
closer being a quiebro calling the bull while sat on the boards. Escribano
channelled his inner Fandi after
placing this final pair and ran in front of the bull until it stopped chasing
him. He began the faena with some passes cambiados in the centre of the ring
and the initial series with the right had were controlled and clean. However,
the bull soon started showing the ranches usual behaviour and Escribano suffocated
the bull with his approach leading to an untidy end to the performance.
The fifth bull met
Escribano in the puerta de chiqueros for a larga cambiada a porta gayola, it
was cleanly executed, but I am getting the feeling that these openings are such
commonplace now that they are losing their emotive element of surprise. Manuel displayed
his athelticims during the tercio de banderillas, the bull charged hard and
Escribano placed his two opening pairs de poder a poder emphatically and
powerfully, he ended the tercio with his typical quiebro al violin and once
again had the crowd on their feet. He peppered his work with recortes and sprints
to ready the bull for each par de banderillas. Manuel ran into some trouble
early in the faena when he tried to torear the bull as if it was not a Miura
(with some estatuarios), when he treated the bull as he should, he was able to
torear correctly. The bull was noble and, once he had worked out the suitable
technical solution, Escribano was able to construct a pleasing faena founded on
toreo fundamental with either hand. He readjusted his footing between each
pass, kept the lure close to the bull’s nose and timed his passes excellently.
His emotive estocada was a fitting conclusion and gave way to a thoroughly
deserved ear. Manuel Escribano has given us a very solid feria that should
serve him to collect a healthy amount of contracts throughout the summer. He
has his technical and aesthetic limitations, but toreros with his jovial and
emotive concept of toreo are necessary in la fiesta.
Iván Fandiño’s first
opponent was a tricky customer. It had an uncomfortable gazapeo throughout the
faena and behind each charge was the intention to seek the torero rather than
the lure. Iván acquitted himself well, overcoming the bull’s problems and even
extracting some worthwhile passes from it. However, given the bull’s condition
a complete and brilliant performance was impossible.
Iván opened his lidia to
the sixth bull with a larga cambiada de rodillas – a decisive opening that
indicated his desire not to be left behind after his colleagues’ triumphs. He
seemed at ease with the bull during the early tercios and placed the bull some
distance from the horse which led to a couple of notable pics. However, the
bull was tough for the muleta and therefore prevented Fandiño from constructing
a faena. We will need to wait to see him before better bulls before casting
judgement on his current form.
A word on the Miura bulls
to conclude this review. These bulls can join the Victorino, Cuvillo and Fuente
Ymbro as the best strings of the feria. Each of the bulls was interesting, from
Dávila and Escribanos lots, which both allowed for good toreo, to Fandiño’s
poor bulls that, notwithstanding had the excitement conveyed by their ever
present problems. Notably, all six bulls were grey; it is probably just a
coincidence, but it is the type of coincidence that leads to speculation about
possible Saltillo infusions into the Cabrera blood.
No comments:
Post a Comment