Bullbreeding

The wild bulls have long since left the Spanish plains. The animal we see in the arenas today is the result of a meticulous programme of selection and livestock-improvement which started in the 17th century when - instead of fighting bulls - Spanish nobles were forced to urged their attention on bull breeding as a commercial venture. Eventually this would lead to seven ‘castas’ (original bloodlines). Around Ciudad Real, José Sanchez Jijón started his ‘ganaderia’ with extremely aggressive red-haired bulls from the region of La Mancha. His bulls would be known as the ‘Jijonas’, and they became the first official (and commercially successful) bloodline. For the second casta, the ‘Navarras’, the fiery cattle from the northern provinces were used to create a sturdy and - in its day - highly respected fighting bull. ‘Toros Moruchos’, or the ‘bulls from Raso Portillo’, were the third bloodline to emerge. However, they were a crossbreed between non-fighting bulls from Castille and the aggressive ‘Navarras’ and are still considered to be less pure. Carthusian and Dominican monks of Jerez and Seville (who had been breeding bloodstock since the establishment of their monastic orders) laid the foundation for the fourth bloodline, the ‘Casta Cabrera’. This was founded in 1745 and named after its creator, Jose Rafael Cabrera, a breeder from the Andalusian village of Utrera. The fifth bloodline, the ‘Casta Gallarda’, also originated in Utrera as did the sixth, known as the Vazquez-breed, which was started in 1757. Pedro Luis de Ulloa y Calis, count of Vistahermosa, was the last original (some say ‘romantic’) ganadero of the 18th century and the most proliferous. For centuries bull breeders bought and bred from his stock, and many of the bulls you see in the arena today descend from this ancient bloodline. The many distinguished ‘houses’ of Domecq and their countless branches being its most successful modern heirs.

Pieter Hildering

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