Blood and Sand

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

"For God's sake, Sol! do not risk anything"....

The "derribadores" entered into the enclosure, being greeted as they went through the palings by the shouts of the populace, who had come to see the sport.

The horses, seeing their enemies and sniffing them from afar, began to prance, neighing and kicking beneath the firm hands of their riders.

The bulls were in the centre in a group, some were quietly grazing, while others lay sleepily ruminating on the grass which was a little rusted by the winter; others, wilder, trotted towards the river, the old oxen, the prudent "cabestros"[78] immediately starting in pursuit, the big bells round their necks ringing, while the cowherds assisted them in collecting the stragglers by slinging stones which struck the tips of the fugitives' horns.

The riders remained a long time motionless, holding a council under the impatient eyes of the crowd who were longing for something exciting.

The first to ride out was the Marquis accompanied by one of his friends; the two galloped towards the group of bulls, and when within a short distance stopped their horses, standing up in their stirrups, waving their "garrochas" and shouting loudly to frighten them. A black bull with powerful thighs detached himself from the rest, trotting to the further end of the enclosure.

The Marquis had every right to be proud of his herd, composed entirely of fine animals, carefully selected from judicious crossing. They were not animals destined only for the production of meat, with rough and dirty coats, big hoofs, hanging heads, and large and ill-placed horns. They were animals of nervous vivacity, strong and robust, making the ground shake as they went along raising clouds of dust under their hoofs. Their coats were fine and shining like well-groomed horses, their eyes fiery, the neck broad and proudly carried, their legs short, their tails long and fine, their horns well shaped, sharp and polished as if by hand, and their hoofs short, small and round, but hard enough to cut the grass like a steel.

The two riders galloped after the animal, attacking him from either side, barring his way as he tried to make for the river, till the Marquis, spurring his horse, gained on him, and, nearing the bull with his garrocha in front of him, drove the iron on to his croup, the combined impetus of the horse and the rider's arm causing him to lose his balance, and roll over on the ground belly upwards, his horns stuck in the ground and his four legs in the air.

The rapidity and ease with which the breeder had accomplished this feat, raised shouts of delight from the other side of the paling. Olé for the old men!... No one understood bulls like the Marquis. He managed them as if they were his own children, tending them from the day they were born, till the day they entered the Plazas to die like heroes worthy of a better fate.