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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | November 2007 
Child Matadors Draw Olés in Mexico’s Bullrings
 Marc Lacey - NYTimes
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| | Michelito Lagravere Peniche, 9, one of Mexico’s youngest bullfighters, confronts a calf in Mérida. | 
| Although he stayed on to take a sword to the bull, Michelito is overcome by emotion after taking an unusually long time to kill him.
(Photos: Jennifer Szymaszek/New York Times) |
Mérida, Mexico — Michelito Lagravere Peniche, 9, put his fingers to his head to create mock horns and charged at Jairo Miguel, 14, who gracefully dodged him on the first pass. But Michelito was an aggressive bull and he circled back, this time striking his friend Jairo in the leg. Both boys erupted in laughter.
The first bullfight of the season in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula was rained out, which is why two of Mexico’s youngest bullfighters, disappointed to not be confronting real bulls, found themselves playing in the middle of the Plaza of Mérida after most of the spectators had gone.
They are not allowed to fight professionally in Spain, but baby-faced bullfighters are the rage throughout Mexico. Even though some of the school-age children appearing at the country’s scores of bullrings are not much taller than the bulls they confront, these mini-matadors have begun getting top billing from promoters, who view them as a new way to bring people to the arena.
It is difficult to know exactly how many of them are fighting across the country, and no Mexican law limits their age. Regional and national bullfighting groups consider the bullfighters’ experience when matching them with the bulls, with the youngest and least experienced starting with year-old bulls.
Still, the children confront very real danger in the ring, and their fights still end with the traditional killing of the bull. As their appearances have grown more frequent, so, too, has criticism from those who say they should find a safer extracurricular activity.
Jairo, an apprentice bullfighter who is following in the footsteps of his father, knows the danger better than most. A Spaniard who began his professional career in Mexico at 12, Jairo was gored so seriously on April 15 in Aguascalientes that he was near death. The bull, named Hidrocalido and weighing in excess of 900 pounds, pierced his left lung, coming within an inch of his heart.
“We’ve had the opportunity to take care of other bullfighters but nothing this serious,” said Dr. Alfredo Ruiz Romero, the surgeon who treated him. “And he’s the youngest bullfighter we’ve seen. He’s a boy.”
To make that point, Dr. Ruiz recounted how Jairo watched cartoons in his hospital bed in the days after the accident. As for whether he is too young to face bulls, Dr. Ruiz demurred.
“It’s a question that’s hard to answer,” he said. “There are many risks in life. I doubt the father is forcing him to do this. He may be influencing him, but this boy wants to be a bullfighter. When you talk to him, you see that. He’s serious about it.”
After a few months of rehabilitation in Spain, where people under 16 are prohibited from bullfighting, Jairo was back in the ring in Mexico. But on Sept. 2 he was gored again, this time with a gash of nearly six inches in his buttocks. Still, Jairo insisted on killing that bull before being treated, winning plaudits for bravery in Mexico City’s bullfighting press.
Despite the run-ins, Jairo shows no interest in hanging up his sequined suit and forgoing the thousands of dollars — and potentially tens of thousands of dollars — he can make for every bull he kills.
“I’ve never thought of quitting,” he said. “I’ve spent my life doing this. This is what I love.”
He learned it from his father, Antonio Sánchez Cáceres, who retired as a matador in 1993 when Jairo was just months old. Now Mr. Sánchez is his son’s manager, trainer and companion on the road. The father and son live in Mexico during bullfighting season, which runs from October to March, while Jairo’s mother and siblings remain in Spain.
Mr. Sánchez, who said he was injured five times in his career of decades, said it was his worst nightmare to see his son so seriously hurt. He still recalls the desperate look on Jairo’s face as he moaned: “I’m dying, Dad. I’m dying.”
But that was then. Jairo has healed, re-entered the ring and put the accident behind him. He has, however, decided to practice more before trying the dramatic “cape pass” again. The maneuver, in which the bullfighter falls to his knees as the bull approaches, is what Jairo was doing when he was gored.
As for the dangers bullfighters face, he is philosophical.
“We’re just normal people but we have a profession that puts us in dangerous spots,” he said. “Motorcycles and cars have even more deaths. But the car, you can control. A bull thinks for himself.”
Jairo saw that on Oct. 24, when he lost his footing during the rescheduled rained-out bullfight in Mérida. The bull charged at him, piercing the back of his sparkling jacket with a horn and smearing bull blood over him. Jairo’s father was quickly at his side, checking to make sure it was not his blood. After the bullfight, Jairo brushed off the accident.
Even tinier but just as committed as a bullfighter is 9-year-old Michelito, who is also following in his matador father’s footsteps.
“Those who know how to bullfight aren’t scared,” said Michelito, who wows onlookers by standing his ground no matter how close the bull treads. “I’m completely calm.”
His mother, Diana Peniche Marenco, said he preferred capes and swords as a toddler to cars and balls. On a lark, Michelito faced a calf when he was just 4 ½. That is when he declared to his parents in his squeaky voice that he planned to become a bullfighter.
“As a mother, of course I’m concerned,” said Ms. Peniche, who manages the bullfighting ring in Mérida. “But this is what he wants to do.”
Chubby, baby-faced but sober before he faces a bull, Michelito has never been gored, partly because he faces far tamer animals than his older bullfighting colleagues.
But that does not mean he has not had close calls. He stumbled to the turf during his most recent outing, and the bull seemed to walk all over him. Michelito emerged sobbing, although he stayed to take a sword to the bull.
Bullfighting advocates say they have no interest in throwing toddlers in with snarling beasts. Under the rules in Mexico, mini-matadors like Michelito face year-old bulls that look as immature as he is. More experienced apprentices like Jairo confront 3-year-old bulls, which are far more aggressive.
The deadliest bulls are those over 5. They are fully developed, harder to fool and capable of taking lives. Only full-fledged matadors wave capes in their direction.
Once the bull is down, felled by darts and a well-placed sword, Marco Antonio Vásquez, dressed in a red cap and white suit, hooks the corpse up to horses and drags it out of the ring. It is a job he has been doing all his life, passed along from his father. His son, Jesús, just 14, is now at his side in the ring, learning the tricks of the trade.
“It’s what I want to do,” Jesús said.
Bullfighting has always had that generational quality. But the youth of the bullfighters in Mexican rings also involves something else — an effort to inject pizazz into a tradition that is drawing smaller audiences of late.
“It used to be the same old matadors for years, and then they began making it more interesting with these young ones,” said José Martín, a taxi driver and bullfighting fan.
Mr. Martín enjoys the young talent, but he has a son Jairo’s age and he cannot imagine his 14-year-old in the ring. “My son can barely handle a bull that is chopped up on his plate,” he said. “He’d get hurt by a toy bull.”
And modern bullfighters, no matter their age, face other opponents besides the bulls. Jairo said he sometimes encountered protesters in Mexico’s bullrings who yelled “Assassin!” at him. Sometimes he cannot help himself, he said, and he yells back.
“Why don’t they try to end wars?” he asks of Mexico’s growing movement against bullfighting. “There are people dying. Why are they so concerned about the bulls?” |
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