Her X account has the motto “Don’t stop dreaming”, and Carla Otero, a novillera with horses, has reasons for this. A very serious injury she suffered last year forces her to daydream so as not to lose the illusion of her existence. She is a petite young woman, with a shy appearance and a quiet voice, but she keeps a surprising energy inside her.
“The bull is above many things,” he says. “It is the first thing in my life; I live for and by the bull.” Above, also, the university studies in Business Administration and Management that he is taking at the UNED so that class attendance does not prevent him from continuing with his bullfighting training.
And she says this out of the blue after a bull from Los Chospes destroyed her right thigh on September 5th in the El Casar de Talamanca bullring (Guadalajara). She was not able to reappear in the bullfighting costume until June 23rd after an ordeal of almost 10 months of hard and intense rehabilitation that is still ongoing. “My right leg still doesn’t respond like the other one, but I trust in my 21 years, in my physical preparation and in my mentality as a bullfighter. After the goring, nobody could guarantee me anything, and they told me terrible things that have been overcome today.”
“The bull is above many things, it is the first thing in my life; I live for and by the bull.”
Carla Otero was born in the Madrid town of Alcorcón, but became a bullfighter (as she prefers to be called) at the Guadalajara Bullfighting School, in the province of Guadalajara, where she has lived since she was very young. She had no contact with bulls until she was 13, and her first steps and passes were taken by following the bullfighting vocation of her brother, two years older than her, and since then she has felt ‘hooked’. “I don’t know if the word is ‘hooked’, passionate or poisoned…” she says; “yes, I think poisoned is the most accurate, because I don’t understand my life without the bull.”
She says that she had an exciting stage as a novillera without horses, won the Zapato de Plata contest in Arnedo, made her debut with picadors in April 2022, and fought in 12 bullfights that season. “Since I started, my courage and race have been praised, because I suffered many somersaults and I got up without looking at myself,” the bullfighter continues, “but I also try to make my bullfighting exciting, to emerge slowly, truly, deeply and purely… That is my search.”
She says that José Tomás is the bullfighter who has had the greatest impact on her, but that she does not lose sight of Morante, Talavante, Curro Vázquez, Antoñete, and other bullfighters from this and other eras. “But I try not to be like any of them, because I want to be myself; to learn from all of them, yes, but to forge my own personality.”
She says that the sincerity of her bullfighting is her best virtue, and she hopes that experience will allow her to polish the many shortcomings she still suffers from. “My life is not the normal one for a girl my age, but for me it is not a sacrifice; living as a bullfighter is a gift. I have my group of friends who go out on the weekends and party, but I don’t go out much; I prefer to go to the countryside, bullfight and train.”
Everything was going according to plan – in 2023 he had fought six afternoons and had two more booked – until the goring occurred on September 5.
“Yes, the baptism of blood was very hard,” says the bullfighter. “Because it was not a goring from which you recover in 15 days. You have to be very passionate to endure. Although fortunately everything went well, it was a very serious mishap. But I also tell you that I would not change anything of what I experienced, that I am proud to have a scar on my body. The most important thing, without a doubt, is that I have reappeared and that is a great triumph for my personal and bullfighting life.”
“My daily life is not like that of a girl my age, but for me it is not a sacrifice; living as a bullfighter is a gift”
AskDo you feel physically and mentally recovered?
AnswerYes, although I suffer the logical after-effects that I hope will be corrected with the passage of time. I recovered the day I was again in front of the bull. My return to the bullring was very important for me, and I achieved my main objective: to once again fight in public dressed in lights.
PBut until then he went through moments of great uncertainty…
R. Because of the goring, the situation became complicated in the Guadalajara hospital after the operation in the mobile ICU. A week after the goring I went back to the operating room because two blood clots appeared, my leg was without blood supply and I was in danger of losing it. I also had an injury to the sciatic nerve, which was the reason for such a long rehabilitation. I was in bed, I couldn’t move my foot, I didn’t know if I would be able to go back to normal life. That situation, logically, creates a lot of doubts.
To speed up the healing process, Carla Otero moved to Seville and for seven months – from October to April – she lived in Camas and traveled daily to nearby Coria del Río to receive rehabilitation sessions at a specialized clinic.
Now, the future…
“I want to live day by day and not create false expectations,” says the bullfighter. “I am in no hurry to take the alternative, and I want the public to know who I am; that goring has marked my career, I have not been able to prepare this winter in the countryside, and I hope that 2025 will be the year of my takeoff.”
P. He still has many dreams to fulfill,
R. Without a doubt. I want to be seen in Las Ventas, it would be exciting to bullfight in La Maestranza… And continue with my university career. Work as a graduate in Business Administration? That would be nice, yes, but it wouldn’t be so nice…