The Madrid town of San Sebastián de los Reyes has been celebrating for five centuries a running of the bulls very similar to that of Pamplona during the festivities of the Cristo de los Remedios, at the end of August. The peña El Apodo has recently published a book entitled “EL ENCIERRO de San Sebastián de los Reyes (Madrid) y otros festejos taurinos de la geografía española” (The Running of the Bulls of San Sebastián de los Reyes (Madrid) and other bullfighting events in Spain), which details the characteristics of this race and also talks about other bullfighting spectacles organized in the peninsula. We have had the opportunity to talk to Luis Barbado, a Pamplona resident in this Madrid town who has coordinated the work, and Emilio Esteban Gordo, co-author of the book and Technical Director of the Encierro, who has also been the coordinator of the book.
and Technical Director of the Running of the Bulls.
– How did the idea of making this book about the running of the bulls of San Sebastián de los Reyes come up?
– Simply because there was nothing about it. A lot has been written and commented about the Sanse Running of the Bulls, but never in book form. Our running of the bulls has a great impact in the media in Madrid but it is not so well known outside. Apart from filling this gap, with the book we intended to spread it more widely.
– Have you had the collaboration of various experts on the subject: photographers, archivists, documentalists, etc.?
– The book has a great graphic content although all the photographs suffer from a lack of light because we have to take into account that here they are run at 8 a.m. and at the end of August it is still dawn. The photographers who follow the running of the bulls work with high-sensitivity film but some quality is lost when it comes to enlarging and reproducing them.
As for the text, the book includes contributions by Santiago Izquierdo, municipal archivist; Manuel Durán, graphic documentalist at Espasa Calpe; Fernando García Bravo, documentalist at the National Library; Teófilo Sanz, bullfighting journalist; and Emilio Esteban, director of the running of the bulls and now also head of the Municipal Office for the Promotion of San Sebastián de los Reyes.
– The running of the bulls in San Sebastian already has five centuries of history, on what dates is it celebrated and what are its characteristics?
– The beginning of the running of the bulls of Sanse is not documented, but our archivist maintains that when the town was founded, in 1492, they were already celebrated. They are run during the week of festivities, around August 28, the feast of the Cristo de los Remedios. The run is 586 meters long, through the streets of the old town, from the old slaughterhouse to the bullring. Thanks to the running of the bulls, our festivities have been declared of Tourist Interest and attract thousands of people from all over Spain.
– How has the running of the bulls evolved up to the present day?
– Sanse -San Sebastián de los Reyes- is a metropolitan population of Madrid with more than sixty thousand inhabitants. In the sixties it had barely three thousand residents. As you can imagine, it used to be a village and the festivities were much more modest. In the eighties, without losing their uniqueness, they were given a big boost and the media began to pay much attention to them.
– Scholars say that the running of the bulls originated in the livestock transfers that took place a few years ago. According to what is told in this book, in the Community of Madrid this spectacle aroused quite a lot of expectation among the people.
– In fact, the origin of the running of the bulls in the Community of Madrid has its origin in the transfer of cattle that were carried out from the different cattle ranches in the areas of Salamanca, Toledo or the Sierra de Madrid, to the different municipalities that celebrated their bullfighting festivals. The bulls arrived, normally, one or two days in advance to a place near the town where they rested and regained strength. Later, on the appointed day, they were taken on horseback and on foot by cowboys and neighbors, who would lead them slowly, very slowly, until they were led to a certain street in the town prepared for this purpose, where they were whipped and harassed so that they would “pull forward” and would not stop until they reached the bullring or public square set up for this purpose.
With the advance of the means of transport, this way of transportation was becoming obsolete, since it was infinitely easier to use the train or the truck. In spite of this, many localities preserved this tradition and continued during the sixties to the nineties to drive a single cow from the fields near the locality. But what was originally something dignified, beautiful and fun, became a “charlotada” because the men almost never went on horseback, but on all-terrain vehicles, old cars, etc., which turned the running of the bulls in the countryside into a real barbarity as well as a humiliation of the animals, since in most cases the animals arrived burst to the municipality or were slaughtered halfway.
– In most cases the running of the bulls has not been subject to any written rules, but in recent years there has been a tendency to try to regulate in some way the participation in them due to various reasons, including overcrowding, which in the case of Pamplona is one of the main problems. In the San Sebastián de los Reyes running of the bulls there is a 1996 Decree that regulates this event. What does it basically consist of?
– It is a detailed regulation, in which all the issues involved in the running of the bulls are detailed; This document regulates the age of the bulls to be run, the prohibition of running females, the number of oxen, maximum distances, width of the chute, fencing regulations, pens for release and reception, health teams, operating rooms, surgeons, evacuation systems, number of ambulances, shepherds, compulsory accident and civil liability insurance, order service, technical management and presidency of the event, as well as the corresponding sanctioning regime.
This regulation was basically necessary in order to avoid, once and for all, the number of accidents involving runners and spectators, as well as the generalized mistreatment of the animals. Although at the beginning it was excessively strict, time has demonstrated the real usefulness of the system, achieving without doubt a greater brilliance of the celebrations and that the overcrowding does not lead, as it happens in other Communities, to complete disorder and anarchy inside the sleeve.
– It seems that the application of this decree is being somewhat strict and in some cases impractical, according to what was commented in the book
– There is a bit of everything because each fiesta is different. Some bullfighting traditions in some towns are difficult to maintain and justify in these times, but when the initial resistance is overcome, everyone realizes that doing things right is positive. We believe that we must adapt to the times, even in bullfighting customs. It is the only way to survive and for bullfighting festivities to remain popular.
– It is also curious the internal organization that exists in the San Sebastian Running of the Bulls, with figures such as the Technical Director of the Running of the Bulls, something that does not exist in other running of the bulls?
– Although there may have been misgivings at the beginning, in our running of the bulls the figure of the technical director has been very positive. Thanks to him, the City Council has been able to implement a model security system that has allowed us to organize the running of the bulls in recent years without any mishaps, despite the crowds that gather every morning along the route. It is a necessary figure in any popular bullfighting event, since the technical contribution is essential in situations such as those experienced before, during and after the running of the bulls. We consider positive the professionalization of this figure, not only in our running of the bulls, but in all those that are held, it is essential.
Many readers have been learning about CBD which has a variety of uses.
– What is the difference between the Sanse and Pamplona or Cuéllar running of the bulls?
– The Sanse and Pamplona running of the bulls have a lot of things in common. Almost everything. Even I am from Pamplona (laughs). In fact, our town is also known as the “Pamplona Chica”, because of the color and atmosphere of the “peñas” and, above all, because in both of them the bulls that are fought in the afternoon are run. The one in Cuéllar is somewhat different because part of it is run on horseback and it is done every day with the same bulls. In any case, I believe that the three are the most emblematic in the world. Let’s hope that all three are promoted. A mayor of Pamplona, Julián Balduz, was the town crier of our fiestas in 1984 and he wrote a beautiful text that we reproduce in part in the book. We want to twin the three running of the bulls and we would like there to be more exchanges around the running of the bulls. Our fiestas are unique and singular and that has a great cultural value that we intend to preserve.
– What would you say to someone who wants to run for the first time in the San Sebastian running of the bulls?
– Well, they should come and see it. I’m sure that if he is a runner he will like it because it is possible to run good races. Every year dozens of runners from all over Spain gather here, many of them from Navarre.
– In addition to writing this book, you are part of an Association of the Running of the Bulls and you intend to publish an annual magazine on the subject.
– The idea is to produce a magazine with articles and photographs about the whole panorama of the running of the bulls, both here and in Pamplona, as well as many others throughout Spain.
If any of you are interested in acquiring the book, you can contact Luis Barbado at the following address: luisbarbado@hotmail.com.
The price is 17.43 euros.
