We must surrender to the evidence: the San Isidro Fair is already a product – the statement is from businessman Rafael García Garrido and it is true – and it is so regardless of the figures, the bustling public, the heaviness of all the bullfighters and, even, the absence of Morante de la Puebla from this year’s posters, and the inertia of the company in Las Ventas, Plaza 1.
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The big surprise: Talavante and Juan Pedro Domecq, winners according to journalists
Journalists who cover the information on the San Isidro Fair frequently complain about the public’s lack of knowledge about bullfighting and its triumphalism, and it turns out that when push comes to shove they have (we) chosen Talavante and the rancher Juan Pedro Domecq as winners of San Isidro, so that all of us who work there every afternoon have placed ourselves at the same level as the criticized spectators.
This has been the decision of the jury of Plaza 1, the management company of Las Ventas, made up of specialized journalists.
Everyone is free to give their vote to whomever they consider, and everyone is respectable, but the same right exists for disagreement; and It is an obvious cry that neither the bullfighter from Extremadura nor the rancher from Seville have been the best in this long cycle.
Talavante has cut off three ears and left through the Puerta Grande on the first day of the fair after a heartfelt slaughter of a bull artist by Núñez del Cuvillo. Román carried the same trophies, and his work against the victorious Gallarete was much more intense and exciting; and Antonio Ferrera’s Puerta Grande was dotted with genius. About tastes, colors, but reality is unappealable. Talavante did not deserve to be declared the winner.
And the Juan Pedro bulls on May 28? Very careful in staff, fair in strength and caste, kind and noble. Has any journalist remembered El Torero, Fuente Ymbro and Pedraza de Yeltes, among others? And not to mention the steers of Montealto and Conde de Mayalde, the most well-attended at the Fair.
The rest of the winners are the following: best job: Talavante, Urdiales, Castella and Ferrera; best bullfighter: Álvaro Serrano; best rejoneador: Diego Ventura; revelation bullfighter: Ismael Martín; best lunge: Urdiales; best picador: Manuel Jesús Ruiz Espartaco; best fighter and best banderillero: Iván García; and best bull: Cantaor, by Victoriano del Río.