The president of the Senate, Pedro Rollán, who this Monday presented the bullfighter Curro Vázquez with the National Bullfighting Award, has stated that the Upper House is currently “a refuge for the world of bullfighting and where the regulation of bullfighting as cultural heritage was approved.
In an event attended by the leader of the PP, Alberto Nuñez Feijóo, and those responsible for the nine communities promoting the award (Andalusia, Cantabria, Extremadura, Murcia, the Valencian Community, Aragon, Castilla-La Mancha, Madrid, Castilla y León and the city of Melilla), Rollán stressed that this award unanimously recognizes the work of the 73-year-old veteran bullfighter from Linares (Jaén) in the past festival. October 12 in the Plaza de Las Ventas.
Rollán, who recalled that the prize – which is endowed with 30,000 euros, the same amount as the National Culture Awards – arises from the collaboration with the Toro de Lidia Foundation and as a result of “the unilateral decision of the Ministry of Culture to suppress the award in 2024,” he stressed that Curro Vázquez is “a figure of admiration” and said that the jury has valued the 82 bullfights fought. in Las Ventas and the right-hander’s ability to be a “bridge of generations.”
For his part, Curro Vázquez has reviewed his long career and has transferred his admiration, since he was a child, to the bullfighters of other generations. Vázquez thanked Rollán and the president of the Toro de Lidia Foundation, Victorino Martín, for the distinction received: “Today is one of the happiest days of my life,” he stated.
In a speech in the old session hall, Vázquez, who is currently still linked to the world of bullfighting as the representative of a Mexican novillero, said that he does not correct the bullfighters, but speaks to them so that they learn from others: “You can learn from everyone, even from a novillero, and the banderilleros have taught me a lot.” Vázquez added that the public that goes to the bullfights today “is very young, much younger than a few years ago”, and that bullfighting has some values that it does not find in other professions: “The enthusiasm, the passion, the courage, but the most important thing is tradition and, even if they don’t want to, they should not forget that it is culture.”
One of the bullfighters who have been closest to Curro Vázquez during his career is the bullfighter Pablo Aguado, who has had some words of recognition towards one of his greatest supporters: “That this recognition takes place in the Senate is no coincidence. All cultures come together here, and bullfighting is one of the best expressions of this,” he stated. Regarding Curro Vázquez, he highlighted “the category wasted inside and outside the bullring, an ethical authority before which we all stop: Curro Vázquez is a bullfighter’s bullfighter.”
The event was attended by Ministers of Culture, Tourism and the Environment from the driving communities, the first vice president of Castilla-La Mancha, José Luis Martínez Guijarro, senators and the bullfighters José Ortega Cano, Pablo Aguado, Alejandro Talavante and Ginés Marín, among others.
While the handover ceremony was taking place, activists from the organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) represented a performance in which four people pretended to be murdered bulls covered in red paint as blood and rested at the foot of a cardboard trophy where one can read: “Prize for national shame”, and a motto for the “Abolition of bullfighting”. In statements to Efe, PETA spokesperson Daniela Hernández explained that the activists’ presence is intended to ask the authorities to stop supporting “a cruel and archaic industry, which has the majority of Spaniards against it.”