Meet the Bullfighters

“What did you think of the bulls,” asked the man as I descended the unstable stairs.

I had just walked across the wooden planks above the fenced corrals where the fours bulls munched hay. Each bull would take a turn in the Santa Marie Bull Ring in La Gloria, Texas later that day. I had been given this privileged walk above the bulls by the Fred Renk, promoter and owner of the Bull Ring. To take a look at the bulls from the catwalk above their holding area is not part of a typical admission ticket.

“I would not want to have to face those bulls any closer than I was up there,” I gestured to the planked walkway safe above the bulls.

As I hurried to catch up with Ed, I thought that perhaps this man speaking to me was a worker at the ranch or another spectator who had come to watch the bulls envious of my preferred treatment. Later in the cantina, I learned he was a matador.

Longinos Mendoza gives an outward appearance of calm at 2 o’clock in the cantina. He tells me that inside he is nervous. Maybe that is why he stands and doesn’t sit. “Will you go to the chapel before you enter the ring?” I ask. He admits that yes, he will ask Jesus and the Virgin Mary to watch over him this afternoon.

Mendoza began his matador career in Mexico City as a young man of the 1970s. “Bull fighting gets in your blood. You just can’t stop,” he says in prefect English.

Mendoza told me he came to Houston, Texas to perform in bull fights many years ago. “A couple photographed me during my first bull fight,” he said. “The second time they came to photograph me, they brought their daughter. I courted her in the traditional way and we married. There wasn’t much opportunity in the US for a bull fighter, so I worked to perfect my English and studied and eventually became a banker who fight bulls on the side.”

Another matador scheduled to fight, Enrique Delgado, “The Monterrey Cyclone,” spoke no English. He sat calmly at the cantina bar engrossed in the Sunday afternoon football game on the TV screen.

Fred Renk built and opened the Santa Maria Bull Ring in 2000 to preserve the art of bull fighting. According to Renk, it is the only bull ring in the USA open to the public. He became enchanted with bull fighting back in the 1950s when as a seminarian studying for the priesthood he saw his first bull fight in Mexico. Renk never did become an ordained Catholic priest, but he did become an amateur fighter or novillero. Fred passed his legacy to his stepson David.

David is the lanky man selling admission tickets. He is the legendary “El Texano” – one of less than a dozen American professional bull fighters and at the time, the youngest American in history to turn professional in the world of bullfighting. As child, he watched bull fighting at Fred’s side and learned the art of bull fighting from some of the best teachers of this ancient tradition. David’s story is told in a book authored by his stepfather called Two Hearts, One Sword. The book explains how David overcame physical challenges – club feet which were eventually surgically repaired and his height - to fight the bulls. His debut, his first formal novillada, happened on February 22, 1977 in Reynosa’s Plaza Santa Fe. David went on to become the first North American matador in history to be chosen to receive the honor of completing his doctorate in La Plaza Mexico, the largest bull ring in the world. That was back in 1983. Now, David is retired from the ring. Goring by a bull has left him scared and now unable to stand in the ring anymore.

Lyn Sherwood had gone to Spain as a young man. Grey stubble now covers his unshaven face, a leather hat shades his eyes and a beer stays cool in a foam sleeve. “I fought bulls until one day a bull nearly made me as soprano. Then, I gave it up.” Lyn traded his cape for a camera and pen. He is author of a book on bullfighting Yankees in the Afternoon. He showed me the mock up of his new coffee table book. These matador photos and bull fighting history will be published when Lyn finds sponsors to cover the cost of printing and promotion. Today, Lyn is Master of Ceremonies and judge. He leads the crowd in shouts of “Olé” and judges whether the matador is awarded one mock ear from a bull, two ears, or two ears and a tail.

These are the men of the Santa Maria Bull Ring, those who still fight and those who are legendary.

January 13, 2008

Behind the Scenes of the Bullfight

Fred Renk’s home, ranch and life demonstrate his dedication to the art of bull fighting. He met with Ed and me in an expansive but dimly lit room of his LaGloria, Texas home. My first thought was this could be a mini-museum dedicated to bull fighting.

Posters advertising bull fights in Mexico and LaGloria wallpapered the room. The fine work of taxidermists – a bull’s head and hoofs – preserved the kill from an event in Mexico years ago. The suit of lights worn by El Texano, Fred’s stepson David Renk – an American bull fighter, rests against a lone chair positioned as ready for a matador to wear it once more. A glass case with focused bulb draws attention to the shimmer of gold –the lights -other capes and coats worn by matadors. As I wandered through the room, Fred frequently narrated a memory associated with the memento.

Fred is a fit man in his 70s now. He told me that he became an aficionado of bull fighting when he went to Mexico as a seminarian and saw his first bull fight. He gave up the notion of entering the Catholic priesthood but never gave up the love of bull fighting. In his book Two Hearts, One
Sword, Fred tells his story and that of son David who lived his Dad’s dream.

There are some months when Fred teaches and trains young people to enter the ring. He doesn't
call this a “sport,” he says it is more like a “ballet of death” in which the matador must always know where his legs are positioned and give a half step toward the animal to encourage its attack.

“There are two things important in bull fighting.” He said, “The matador must stand still when the bull charges with brute force and must have a strong wrist and arm to hold the cape and heavy sword.” He reminded me that matadors risk their lives if they make a simple mistake. “Only men of valor and great stamina enter the ring,” he commented.

I walked with Fred to the field where his cattle grazed. He is a USA breeder of the “bravo bull” – bulls of special blood from the mother’s genetic line and breed to attack without provocation, to kill what is in their path. “A fighting bull can outrun a quarter
horse,” Fred claims. “They have been measured to cover 850 yards in 90 seconds.”

The animals looked gentle in the distance of the dusty range as they clustered under the shade of the sparsely spaced trees. They didn’t look so gentle when corralled in the narrow wooden pen
waiting to enter the bull ring later in the day. These were “clean bulls” – never touched, never before in a ring, never having seen a matador’s cape. Fred ordered a ranch hand to take me on the cat walk above the corral to see these bulls. The confined bull aggressively banged their horns on the walled area and sent shudders through me. I could feel the vibration of their banging in the planks beneath my feet.

I welcomed the solid ground beneath my feet in the matador’s chapel. This private space is tucked under the stands of the arena. Here matadors will offer prayers to Jesus and the Virgin Mary to keep them safe while in the ring.

In the cantina - bar, Matador Longinos Mendoza told me that meditation prepares him to face the bull.

“The first second in the ring with the bull will divulge how it will act,” Mendoza explained. “The first pass of the bull is critical.” Mendoza trained in Mexico to be a matador where he fought for 10 years. “Were you ever gored?” I asked. His answer was three times, each time he finished the fight.

“Stop?” replies a shocked Mendoza when I ask why he continues after being injured. “No, I don’t want to stop. I love it!” Mendoza smiled. “Let me tell you…once you fight, you want to do it all the time.”

And, Mendoza has fought often since beginning this career in the 1970s. When he married an American and came to the US however he found he was in “another world” where he did not know the language and bull fighting was not a lucrative career. He eventually mastered English and became a banker in Houston. We would see him in the ring that afternoon.

At four o’clock, the trumpet sounded and the gates opened. The bull fight began! Olé!

I want to gratefully acknowledge the hospitality extended by

Fred Renk for this behind the scenes introduction to bull fighting on January 13, 2008.

What Happens When a Bull Won't Fight?

We bought tickets for seats ground level with the arena where we would be shaded by the bleachers above. We had a clear view of the ring where the matadors would fight the bulls. To our right, the press reporters sat poised with cameras and pens to record the event for the small town Rio Grande newspapers. Behind us, fajitas sizzled as they were served. The people eating them washed down the spicy food with cold beer from the cantina. To our left, a wall nearly six-feet high made of wooden two-by-fours separated us from the bull.

The bull stood very still, not moving or protesting. He stood in the narrow pen with no room to turn. He faced toward the arena. Quiet, he made no sounds. When I stood on tippy toes, I could see the tips of his pointed horns, his black hide, and the red rose attached by Velcro to his neck, the matador’s quest in the bloodless bullfight. This would be the first bull to fight today at Fred Renk’s Santa Maria Bullring in LaGloria, Texas.

When the bullfight music began playing, the wooden door to the bull pen swung open. The crowd hushed, waiting but no bull emerged. Where was the thunderous charge, the angry snort, the bull looking to fight? Nothing happened. Again, the music trumpeted and still no bull.

We heard commotion from the pen. Handlers of the bull stood on the catwalk above the bull made sounds like the cowboys in old Western movies moving cattle across the open range. “Yah, yah,” they shouted and kicked the sides of the wooded pen with their boots. The bull slowly walked into the ring, the center of the ring and that’s where he stayed.

The matador tried to entice the bull into a fight. He circled the bull and waved his cape daring the bull to charge. He walked close to the bull then stroked the dirt with his right as if he too were a hoofed bull ready for a fight. The bull simply took a few steps left of center and turned away.

Lyn Sherwood, the Master of Ceremonies and one time bullfighter, reminded us that bull brought into the ring have never been exposed to bullfighting. Bulls fight one time because they learn too quickly that they are to go after the man with the cape. When the gate opens, that is the moment they are expected to fight. “This bull,” he told us, “doesn’t know he’s supposed to fight.”

A second matador stepped into the arena waving his cape and still the bull stood firm. Now, Lyn’s voiced expressed the tension, “This bull is dangerous. He is unpredictable. We need to get him out of the ring.”

The matadors found small stones and tossed them at the bull. He was not agitated. Fred Renk gave an order to send a second bull into the arena, as an attempt to rile the sedentary one. This bull had little effect. Finally, the main gates to the arena flew open and closed rapidly behind the fast moving tractor. Fred Renk, with a stern look of determination on his face, was driving the tractor straight toward the bull which refused to fight. Now, the bull moved. Fred’s grandson tried to lasso the bull. He missed. He once more, and missed its neck again.

Bull and tractor circled the arena. The young cowboy tried again with his lasso and roped the bull. A tug of war ensued as the bull was inched toward an open gate. Don nudged the bull with the tractor until it finally was pushed into the pen next to our seats. Now, the bull snorted and kicked. It had lost its domain in the center of the arena. It had lost its one and only opportunity to star in the ring.

La Gloria, TX Bloodless Bullfight

My cousins and I took turns on Grandma’s wash day running at the white sheets hanging from her sagging clothes line in the back yard. We held mock horns – our stubby index fingers along the side of our heads – pretending we were bulls charging the giant matador’s cape – a full size flat sheet still wet from the wringer washer. “Toro, Toro! Olé! Olé!” we’d yell then go off finding some other six-year-old style of amusement.

There were no bull fights in Indiana, Pennsylvania – the Christmas tree growing capital of the USA and home to the teachers’ college Indiana University. I suspect we learned about bull fighting from our main source of cultural exposure TV. It was probably from a Three Stooges slapstick comedy. In “Snappy Bullfighters” Moe and Larry are costumed like a bull and Curly is the matador. When a real toro bull entered the ring Curly let loose his “Woo Woo Woo Woo” and the Stooges all ran from the snorting, charging bull. I remember that my cartoon favorite Bugs Bunny confronted a toro bull too with a carrot in on hand and a cape in the other. That was how I and other kids growing up in the 60s learned about bull fighting.

I never gave bull fighting much thought in my lifetime until I read headlines in Mc Allen, Texas newspaper The Monitor – “Bloodless Bullfight Sunday.” I decided Ed and I would go to the Corridas, the bull fights.

The Santa Maria Bull Ring is located in LaGloria, Texas. According to the owner/operator and former bull fighter Fred Renk, this is the only authentic ring built strictly for the purpose of bull fighting. There would be three bloodless bull fights here during the 2008 season and Ed and I would attend two of these events. My childhood exposure would be dismissed during these afternoons with Renk, his bulls, and the matadors. This is art and cultural heritage struggling to fit into a contemporary world.

Men of Valor: The Bull Fighters of Santa Maria