Bullfight report

Last night, as you know, was the Modesto Festa held in the Praca de Toiros in Stevinson, California.

Now, if you somehow ended up off the freeway and blew through Stevinson without really knowing that you were in a town, let alone the town with one of the most important bullrings in California, you would be excused. It is a little place populated by 300 folks, most of whom are Portuguese dairy farmers.

The ring itself is interesting, a circular berm ringed with flags and torches. A central staircase leads to the Presidencia and two ramps creep up to the top on either side. The main gate doubles as the toril in some manner that I looked at once, several years ago, but don't remember quite how the logistics work. I should have taken a peek last night. The business of sorting the returned bull from the steers and cows used to return it is a fascinating thing by itself.

Ah, but I digress. The burning question is this: how were the bulls?

From the Ganaderia Acoreana in Hilmar, the bulls were solidly built and fast charging, although they looked a little short legged. Only one of the bulls distinguished itself, although there were another two that were pretty good (and another one that could have been a better bull if it had been handled better by Cavaleira Praticante Ana Rita Costa, but more on her later). The sixth bull of the night was a manso, solely fit for grilling..

Cav. Paulo Ferreira was precise and emotional, working tightly with the bull and horse, and, on his third bull, the fifth of the night, completely dominating the animal, to the point of controlling its speed on whole laps of the arena. When he went in with the sticks he was smooth, accurate, and completely inside before pulling out to safety. He kept his cuadrilla under his control and prevented them from overly distracting the bull (of course the absence of one particular peonwho, a few years back, got in the way of Patricia Pellen so badly she had to give him a dressing down on the sand, had a lot to do with that).

Taking advantage of the fine horses from M and M of Hilmar, Ferreira included a couple of crowd-pleasing adornos, most notably a series of bows after his succesful faena on the fifth bull.

Ana Rita Costa, on the other hand, has a long ways to go in her training before she is actually able to master the bull. Instead of working on the elements of the corrida, such as the pacing, she repeatedly attempted over-the-head placements (a la Rodrigo Santos), which were dazzling when successful, yet lost their lustre when botched, which was the majority of her attempts. Even in her regular placement, Costa was inconsistant, sometimes forming that essential oneness between cavaleira, horse, and bull, and other times completely missing the timing and striking out at the air where the bull was but split-seconds before.

On her second and best bull (fourth of the night), Costa was successful in placing a stick while working the most dangerous and difficult territory between bull and callejon. Wanting to keep up the momentum, she tried to do it again, yet this time misjudging and allowing the horse to be pinned against the boards (of course the bulls' horns are sheathed for the horse events, so the horse was fine) and herself to be tossed into the callejon. The bull was rapidly distracted by the peones, the horse trotted back to the gate, Costa quickly remounted and came back on fire, ready to redeem herself, which she did with a flawless over the head placement.

Her last bull, the last of the night, was the aforementioned manso. It was unable to sustain interest in much of anything, was barely interested in the horse, and forced Costa to quickly move to the bandarilhas. In a brave, yet mostly futile, attempt to pique the public's emotions, she used the short sticks, a move that would have been dramatic had she not had so much difficulty, compounded by the fact that the band leader thought that one of her attempts did not stick, even though it had, leaving an awkward silence and many puzzled looks, including the band leader's.

This manso was returned without facing forcados, which brings us to the scandal of the night.

The old Turlock group and the Artesia group were there, and, while both groups were making successful one-try grabs, neither one was very finessed about it. Turlock, with its long tradition in the area and nearby location, showed with depth. There were probably more suited up forcados in the callejon than on the sand. Artesia, on the other hand, was not in such a good position, with only a ocuple of backups. Therefore, after two slightly sloppy, yet very brave and, ultimately successful grabs, they were in less than stellar shape.

Figuring that their condition was not at its best, and the sixth bull, what would have been their last, was unpredictable and had not been run enough, the Artesia forcados must have realized that an attempt at a grab was a recipe for major injury. Fair enough. One could complain that they should have come up North with more forcados, but they had what they had, and their headmen had taken a fair drubbing by the last bull.

So the president signaled for the bull to be removed. Now, before the herd came out to retrieve the bull, the Turlock forcados petitioned to be allowed the final grab, which the president dilly-dallied on and finally consented to, but only after the herd was in the ring, making the question moot. Now, whether he did that so as to save face for the Turlock boys, who, even with their experience and depth, probably should not have taken that bull, or whether or not it was simply because he took too long to make up his mind, the crowd definitely felt shortchanged of the last grab, which is the most important part of the bullfight to the Azoran farmer. Cries of "that'sh bull!" could be heard in our section.

Compounding the confusion and disappointment was when Costa came out for a lap, which the president did not award. Misreading his gesture, she started one, only to be reprimanded. She looked shocked and hurt as she went back to the center of the ring for a final salute. However, the president was right, for several reasons:

1. The lap of honor is not a given. It should be awarded, and it is a presumptuous lack of proper respect to due authority to take it before the president orders it.

2. Costa's performance was not very good on that bull. Certainly part of the problem was the bull itself, but in a way the lap of honor is for both toro and torero. And, given her problems with her first bull, I have to wonder if perhaps the bull would have given more if she had been more experienced in drawing something out of it. Yes, she placed the short sticks, but there were too many missed attempts.

3. The crowd was visible upset and leaving the stands. Even had her faena been magnificent, it would have been an embarrassing situation for the festa and for her. The crowd was annoyed at the situation with the forcados, and some would have stood around like scolded schoolchildren, begrudgingly giving her applause, yet most would have been on their way back to their cars. In fact this was the situation on her aborted attempts at a lap of honor, so she would have saved herself the embarassment had she waited for the official honor.

Overall, we had a great time, and the newbies we brought seemed to enjoy themselves. I like a bullfight like that to bring newcombers to, because they get to see the good, the bad, and the mediocre, with its moments of good to keep it interesting.

Posted by erik at May 29, 2007 10:02 PM