The president ends the free bar for bullfighting and denies Diego Ventura a Puerta del Príncipe award.

President Gabriel Fernández Rey came to bring a modicum of sanity and rigor to the festival. Not to the National Festival, but to the festival that the traditional bullfighting event at the Maestranza had become, whose occasional public legitimately comes to demand a few ears to justify the high price of their tickets. He may have even been more strict than necessary, but it's better in these cases to fall short than to be overly generous. You know: against the vice of asking, the virtue of not giving . And with his inflexible attitude, he denied the Puerta del Príncipe award to Diego Ventura , who certainly deserved a first ear against the second bull after having put together a vibrant and united performance against a textbook tame bull. He finally awarded one to the cigar-loving bullfighter in the fifth and another to Guillermo Hermoso de Mendoza in the sixth.

The usía focused all his attention on the placement of the various instruments used; from the punishing rejones to the banderillas and the final roses. Ventura's praiseworthy performance with the second bull was thrilling, as we say, but it's also worth noting that he missed the mark twice in the execution of his garapullos. And if we're starting to open the season, we ended as we have in recent years: with a Maestranza in the style of a pilgrimage . The first of Guillermo Hermoso de Mendoza's two performances was the complete opposite, as he planted his rejones and banderillas on the same point— "on a coin," as the old-fashioned people would say —and went for the kill with power. Always very direct. Bohórquez's bullfight was too biased and lacking in face, growing in breed and mobility from the third bull onward after the tame and weak start to the afternoon.

The Portuguese Rui Fernande had raised the curtain on the weak and uneven first bull, which was only correct, but more in tune with the stands in his work against the well-bred and collaborative fourth. There was a lack of composure and accuracy with the death-dealing rejones.

Diego Ventura was more collected, charismatic, and dedicated. With the tame first bull and the manageable fifth, it was with Nómada that he set the Maestranza's silverware alight in a performance that practically unfolded like a match made in heaven. Making a virtue of his defect (tameness) , he carried the bull sewn to his rump and stirrup through the thirds before pirouetted over the face of Machista—Bohórquez's second—whom he understood from start to finish. His two-handed pair with Bronce, whose head he had taken, proved to be the high point of a performance that he sealed with a standing bull with a rejón that he ended up nailing in two stages. He needed to use the verduguillo, sending his entire gang to cover themselves. This was the first of two ears that the president denied the cigar maker. The fifth was more collaborative, although he also failed to fully express his commitment. Ventura embroidered Oro Negro with collected bars between garapullos, and the breaks with Quitasueño were even tighter. He again, as before, brought out Bronce for an ecstatic finale without a headband.

Guillermo Hermoso de Mendoza arrived, full of truth and purity. He was upfront in everything he did, placing his banderillas without error, and tried to kill, as he did, from a distance and with precision. He received the third bull of the afternoon with a single rejón, citing with great distance and precision on Ecuador's back; although, as we say, it was that supreme power-to-power with Esencial that earned everyone's recognition. The truth of bullfighting, delivered on horseback. Despite the good placement of the rejón, the bull didn't fall, and he had to resort to the descabello.

Even more exciting was his performance against the sixth bull of the afternoon, which he greeted from inside the pigpen gate. He enjoyed his banderillas with Berlín , and he embellished his pirouettes with Nairobi . More than a stable, his work was Money Heist . The rejón fell more from behind, and he again went for the descabellado, although this time Gabriel Fernández Rey did award him an ear.

.