For El Zotoluco, known to his mother as Eulalio Lopez, it was supposed to be a triumphant return to Arles, where at last year's Feria du Riz he performed with gusto and grace against the fighting bulls of the Miura ranch, the oldest and most prestigious finca in Spain.
Instead, it was a massacre. His first fight was so bad that the crowd stood up to boo him from the arena, and booed him again when he came back for his second bull. He claimed top billing as a matador and hailed from Mexico, giving him an exotic flair at the annual bullfight, which is held in the excellently restored Roman amphitheater in this otherwise undistinguished southern French town.
The fight impresarios managed to ward off a legal challenge from the hard-left "animal-rights" crowd, which tried to convince a court in Carcassonne recently to ban all traditional bullfights in France. But the biggest challenge to the final day of this year's three-day feria in Arles was an act of God: torrential rain which, just one hour before the opening trumpets were supposed to sound on Sunday, Sept.
Floods killed six people in the area that evening and the next day. Seating at bullfight arenas varies in prestige and price according to whether you sit in the sun or the shade. It's been that way since the Romans first built the arenas that the French have restored.
But it wasn't the threat of rain that spooked El Zotoluco when the first bull charged out of the gates at the far end of the arena. The top-billed torero and his entire cuadrilla the team of junior matadors, banderilleros and sword carriers that accompanies him scattered like scared monkeys, taunting the dark brown bull with a quick fling of their yellow and pink capes then running as fast as fear could carry them for the gates.
