What happens in Tordesillas, in Castilla Leon, isn’t a traditional bullfight as it doesn’t have all the normal strappings – it’s just a case of a dozen or so riders and men on foot attempting to spear a bull.
It’s popular, as the 40,000-person crowd testifies, but that does not stop it being probably the nation’s most controversial festejo taurino.
The bull, called Aflijido (The Afflicted One) didn’t last even 15 minutes, which is hardly surprising, really, before somebody cried “Toro Muerto!” Mind you, 608 kilos of not-amused muscle and horns is not taken lightly.
There’s no ‘fight’ in the traditional sense; no bullfighter peering down a poised blade; not banderillero skipping past leaving a pair of coloured banderillas drooping from the animal’s hide; and no cloak work to see how the animal reacts – not a sausage.
No, the whole thing entails getting the animal intact to the area where it is to be sacrificed, called Las Salinas, in the middle of a pine grove and spear it to death.
This year’s winner took just ten minutes to stab the animal between the ribs and kill it.
(News, Tordisillas, Castilla Leon, Spain)