Teenage Spanish Matador Kills 6 Bulls

Breitbart ^ | Feb 6 | DANIEL WOOLLS

[DogByte6RER]

Teenage Spanish matador kills 6 bulls

By DANIEL WOOLLS

Associated Press Writer

CACERES, Spain (AP) - A 16-year-old Spanish matador killed six bulls in one afternoon Saturday, pulling off a feat normally attempted only by seasoned veterans and winning trophies for his skill—ears from animals he had just slain.

Jairo Miguel Sanchez Alonso, who nearly died from a horrific goring in Mexico in 2007, smiled broadly and waved to a friendly hometown crowd after a pageant that took about two and a half hours.

A tall and slender boy who is also amazingly articulate for his age, he showed off his stuff in an arena called Plaza Era de los Martires, or Time of the Martyrs.

The bullfighter, who goes by the stage name of Jairo Miguel, turned in his best performance with bull No. 5, a hulking black specimen that weighed 435 kilograms (959 pounds).

After skillful cape-work, he finished off the bull with a single deathblow from his sword, sliding it into a spot where it severed the beast's spinal chord. With the rest of the bulls he needed around three stabs.

This is considered too many, and Jairo Miguel acknowledged frustration with that part of his work, although he felt his effort was a success overall and said he was never scared.

"I brought out the best in myself that I could," he told The Associated Press. "It was a good afternoon of bullfighting, and people were not bored."

For the fifth bull, he was awarded the animal's severed ears, one of the bullfighting world's prizes for a job well done. He took a slow victory lap around the ring, showing the organs to the crowd.

[ansel12]

I watched a bullfight in Monterrey in about 1960, as a boy, it made no sense to me.

All I saw was a long brutal, boring, process and I could not figure out what the payoff for the audience was, it was liking watching a kid pull parts off of an insect, you watch what he is doing, and you watch his face, and you can’t figure out what is pleasing him about the act.

The only thing that I could figure out is that they enjoy the suffering and torment/frustration of the bull.

I’m also old enough to remember that American men were proud of being “masculine”, and described Latin cultures using the derogatory term “Macho”.

[Sunshine Sister]

I have been to enough rodeos to know you are telling the truth. The first thing that happens after a rider is thrown is the cinch is removed and the bull calms down considerably.

I too, have never seen an animal injured. I have seen hurt riders and clowns and out riders however. What I have never seen at a rodeo is the outright murder of an animal by anyone. Why in the name of God would anyone approve of that?

[This Just In]

I should also mention that the cinch is secured by the strength of the riders hand. That’s it. Nothing else. The cowboys fasten the cinch around the bulls flanks. They tightens the cinch. The rider then wraps the rope around his hand. During the ride, once the cowboy releases the cinch, it slacks and slides off the bull.

[Sunshine Sister]

I didn’t know that the cinch and the rope the rider holds were one in the same. I have seen riders on horses come up and jerk the cinch off, or so I thought. I guess it’s been a while since I saw a good rodeo.

[This Just In]

My in-law had attended a bull fight and said that it was gruesome. He said that the tips of the bulls horns were fixed with these metal objects which contained hot coals. My in-law said that these coals heat the horns and eventually cooks the bulls brains. Blood sport. Pure and simple.

[tickmeister]

Guess I need to get out more, not sure what cattle knocking is.

[achilles2000]

Exactly how is this more civilized than dog fighting?

Because the bullfighter has some skin in the game? I saw a bullfight in Madrid in which the bulls won. Every matador had to be taken out of the ring. A very strange and very dangerous sport.

[Sunshine Sister]

Gross and cruel. I guess that explains the inquisition huh?

[This Just In]

You’re absolutely correct. The cinch is a seperate form the riders bull rope. My mistake. Sorry about that.

[Mears]

Yeah,I spent 2 weeks there-——many of our group went to a bullfight but I refused to go.

I didn’t like the way they trained greyhounds either,but that’s another story.

[Mears]

A brutal “sport”.

[Tainan]

I have attended 'bullfights' in Spain, Portugal and Mexico. I was simply disgusted with the Mexican version.
The Portuguese version is more closely aligned with the original Spanish fighting. Good show and spectacle. Of the Spanish fights, it is something more akin to a grand sequence which culminates in a duel to the death.
Oh, and Argentina also. Very different there also.

I offer no excuses,justifications or comparisons to another activity. Bullfighting seen from the context of Spanish tradition is not what most Americans, or others, see and experience.

Ansell12 - as to:
"I’m also old enough to remember that American men were proud of being “masculine”, and described Latin cultures using the derogatory term “Macho”."

If I may, again, here we have a corruption of what the true meaning of the term is meant to convey. In the Spanish culture (not necessarily the Mexican culture) the term 'macho' is far deeper and richer than what it has become in the American lexicon.
It was/is used to denote a 'masculine man' who acts with responsibility to his family, to his and their honor and to his word. One whose actions are conducted with pride and truth and honesty. Not arrogance - but with true concern for his family, his friends and his honor.
yes, a bit of a throw-back to a different time, but if viewed in this context I think you will understand the difference.
What it has come to be, derogatory and mocking - "Macho Macho Man! - is quite different in its original context.

[ansel12]

The feminists made the rarely heard foreign word “macho” become the replacement word for “masculine” since about 1970 on. Macho here has meant a kind of overt,rigid,formal Peacock like assertion of masculine qualities and power rather than the Jimmy Stewart, Sergeant York type, of quiet confidence, self effacing humor, a respect for women that does not also require them to know their place.

Think frontier couple with man and woman, side by side, not the woman two steps behind.

I think that I heard that Bullfighting has changed in Mexico over the last 50 years, is that true?

[Tainan]

"I think that I heard that Bullfighting has changed in Mexico over the last 50 years, is that true?"

I cannot speak to what changes might have occurred in corrida de toros in Mehico. I attended a couple of times in the 70s and once in the early 80s.
One thing I remember was that it seemed to have no "honor" as depicted in the Spanish forms of the event. It was just men on heavily-padded horses with long spears poking a bull.

Perhaps my memory is selective on any details and does not do the event justice. I do remember I found it rather hard to get interested in the spectacle.
My opinion might have been influenced by the fact that the whole spectacle was part of a narco-trafficante organizations' "doing something for the people" program.

A good background link on bull-fighting (especially the WikiWacki part):
http://www.answers.com/topic/bullfight

[the_daug]

compressed air tool that hits the cattle in the head with a rod at the slaughterhouse is some times called a knocking gun, some time the cows are not knocked out. Therefore the cow is quite aware when it is hoisted by the hind legs to be stuck and hide removed.

[Tijeras_Slim]

I went cow tipping in red spandex once, does that count?