April 30, 1999
by Lyn Sherwood
Of all the emotions of this, the
most emotional of all the performing arts, tragedy is the most
obvious, the most painful, and the most dramatic.
Sometimes, it can almost be anticipated. Mistakes become conspicuous.
Toro is gaining ground and confidence. The impending doom becomes
inevitable.
Other times, it arrives without warning. A caprice. A miscue. A gust of wind. And, suddenly...
Horns rip flesh. The smell of blood permeates the air. The ring fills with men and flapping capes. Time seems suspended, with all except Toro running in slow motion. Surgeons, already mentally rehearsing the task that lies ahead, wonder what miracles they'll be expected to perform this time. They, too, race slowly toward the infirmary.
It's ugly. Sometimes, it's horrible, as internal organs are exposed, blood cascades, and bones shatter. Yet, always, it hovers in its omnipresence, a specter, waiting, anxiously waiting.
It is this, the threat of death and the inevitability of tragedy, that elevates La Fiesta above all other dramas, performed on all other stages. Remove the presence of tragedy and the possibility of death, and La Fiesta will become meaningless, a bloody rodeo, without the justification of remorse.
Due to the goring of Julian López "El Juli," the corrida of May 2 has been canceled and will be re-scheduled at a later date.
The news comes as a sad surprise to area aficionados, who had anticipated that El Juli's appearance would result in a total sell-out of Plaza Monumental de Tijuana.
According to taurine journalist Joaquin Vidal, El Juli "paid with his blood for his triumph," during the April 23 corrida, celebrated in the spring fair in Plaza de Toros "La Maestranza" in Sevilla. El Juli cut an ear from his first bull. Two ears, awarded for his performance to the last bull of the day, were carried to the infirmary for him. They had already opened The Prince's Gate, through which triumphant matadors are carried on shoulders.
El Juli was making his debut as a matador in Plaza de La Maestranza, on an afternoon that featured bulls of Jandilla for Juli, Curro Romero, and Enrique Ponce. Observers related that, as the bull was erratic, the goring seemed inevitable.
With that bull, El Juli had performed with the cape, offering a variety of disciplines. He placed banderillas, very well. With the muleta, he was performing well, but the bull was gaining ground, searching for flesh. And, he eventually found it. While attempting a chest pass, El Juli was gored in the left thigh. In spite of heavy bleeding from the wound, El Juli killed the animal with one sword. Emergency surgery was performed in the plaza infirmary. Doctors reported that the goring was not grave, but that it had trajectories of six and eight centimeters.
The 17-year-old matador was then transferred to the Clínica Sagrado Corazón. El Juli was quoted as saying, "The triumph has taken away all of the pain of the goring."
Complications developed, which caused the doctors to upgrade the torero's condition as "grave."
But, El Juli's goring wasn't the only one recorded last week. On April 25, Domingo Valderrama —who had received his alternativa, a day earlier, in Cáceres— was attempting to kill, when a Miura bull delivered a very grave goring, which produced two trajectories of 25 and eight centimeters each. The plaza judge awarded two ears to Valderrama.
And last Sunday in Aguascalientes, Mexico, during the third corrida of the San Marcos fair, Eulalio López "El Zotoluco" cut one ear from his first bull and was gored by his second. While offering a natural to his second bull, the manso stopped in the middle of the pass, then drove a horn deeply into El Zotoluco's groin. Surgeons pronounced the injury to be "grave."
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