Frenoso, the breed of the brave bull

Frenoso, a black-coated bull weighing 559 kilos, saved the Puerto de San Lorenzo bullfight from the fire, which, in the end, ended up as something of a cattle competition, with the Victoriano del Río brand participating with two patchwork bulls. One of them was the aforementioned Frenoso, run in fifth place, well-presented and with a fine horn, who put up a simply decent fight with the lances and showed a touch of dullness with the banderillas. However, it seems he rested in the third of the ring while Fernando Adrián gathered his gear and slowly made his way to the center of the ring to toast the crowd.

The bull regained his strength, and when he saw the bullfighter calling him to his knees in the middle, he galloped vigorously toward the muleta, which Adrián met at the last moment with a changed pass from behind, and the animal's fine horns grazed the bull's jacket. By then, it was clear that the animal was going to sell its life dearly. Standing tall, Frenoso pursued the trick with pure passion, humility, promptness, steadiness, demand, and emotion. Thus, three series of right-handed passes emerged in which Adrián maintained his composure and connection, without falling short of the quality of his opponent, who was crying out for more precise and profound bullfighting.

But each is as they are, and the bullfighter certainly gave his all before the bull, giving everything his bullfighting style entails—more modern than classical, but brimming with dedication and honor. There were later natural passes of lesser substance and flourishes, intertwining a molinete, another changed pass, and three tight bernadinas, punctuated by low muletazos that ultimately won over the crowd. But he missed with the sword, and it all ended with a loving lap of the ring for not having turned his back on such a well-bred opponent, who was sent off to a standing ovation.

The rest of the bullfight was a fiasco, featuring unevenly presented, tame, weak, and handicapped bulls, and two bullfighters, Manzanares and Aguado, who seem to have a hard time leaving their comfort zone.

The first, and it's not new, offered the image of a washed-up bullfighter. He resembles a singer without a voice, an artist who has lost his mystery, and become a day laborer who goes to work, but not to work. Manzanares walks around the ring as if he has everything done, listless and comfortable. Curiously, he was assigned the most noble and kind lot, and around him the bullfighting proceeded with few ideas and less flavor. He was always detached, insipid, graceless, lacking his natural elegance.

And Aguado stood out, first with a verónica pass on Adrián's first bull, also disabled, and with another with well-tempered chicuelinas and an extraordinary half-pass on the sixth. His first bull showed no strength at all, but he had come long with the banderillas, and Aguado met him with a muleta in hand with a molinete, a trincherazo, a high pass, another trinchera, and, just as he began the chest pass, the animal collapsed. That was the end of the story. The sixth was the height of dullness and sealed the disastrous afternoon for the titular herd. Aguado tiptoed around both.