Home of the Brave

To the young black bull, whose whole world had been the unpeopled, machine-less range, the two jeeps were a startling sight. When the jeeps came through the gate, the bull glared suspiciously and trotted off across the wide pasture of Mexico's La Punta, the world's biggest ranch for raising toros bravos (brave bulls). The jeeps bounced after him in hot pursuit. They were out on a tienta, a test of fighting quality (with modern trimmings), on which all things at La Punta depend.

Strapped to a perch atop the radiator of one of the jeeps was a man with a long wooden lance. As the jeep caught up, he rammed the lance against the bull's flank, knocking him hoof over hide. All eyes in the jeeps were trained on the black bull, intent on his slightest move.

Scrambling to his feet, the bull, wavering neither to left nor right, charged head-on for the jeep that had goaded him. As the jeep pulled back, he saw a picador with a sharper lance astride a well-padded horse nearby and whirled to charge the horse. The riders of the jeep were quick to approve. Above the young bull's number in a thick registry book, a rider initialed in red ink the letters B.P. (for Bravo Pronto). That meant that two years later, on some Sunday afternoon, in some jam-packed arena in Latin America, the fighting animal would carry the proud red-grey-and-gold colors of La Punta.

Peacocks & Pictures. La Punta was part of the inspiration for Las Astas, the breeding ranch in Tom Lea's bestselling The Brave Bulls (TIME, April 25). It sprawls over 15,000 hectares (about 37,000 acres) of the uneven tablelands of eastern Jalisco. In the aftermath of Mexico's revolution, most big properties were broken up into small farms, but La Punta, like other ranches devoted to breeding fighting bulls, was exempted and cut by only one-half. Few Mexicans objected to this grant of privilege; not even freedom had more profound and compelling connotations than la fiesta de los toros.

La Punta's owners, Francisco ("Paco") and Jose ("Pepe") Madrazo, are scions of one of the clans that flourished in the days of Porfirio Diaz. They have lived serenely through the social upheaval that started in 1910. Within the 100 miles of fence that shields them from the new world, Don Paco and Don Pepe have saved and cherished much of the old.

At their stately, rambling hacienda house, ringed by a 15-foot brick-and-adobe wall, servants rush out at the toot of a horn to open the wide iron-plate gates. Peacocks strut in the shade of the garden's lemon and eucalyptus trees, and dark-suited waiters move through the great halls inside, passing golden glasses of fine manzanilla sherry from Spain and serving tortillas on the end of a knife blade. La Punta can accommodate 30 guests with all the comforts of a metropolitan hotel.

Coyotes & Pumas. Don Paco and Don Pepe always wear the classic skin-tight suits of Andalusian gentry when they ride out to see their stock, and the jingle of Spanish spurs accompanies them. The animals themselves represent La Punta's greatest tie to Spanish tradition. About 2,000 are pure-bred descendants of the big, black Parlade, of the noble bull blood of famed Vistahermosa farm, and his harem of 50 black Vistahermosa cows that the Madrazos brought from Spain in 1923.

When the brood cows begin dropping their calves, vaqueros carefully note the mother's number--branded in foot-high figures on her side--for entry in the register. Then the calf, itself numbered and registered, is turned loose to roam. At the age of 18 months, fighting bulls are rounded up for the all-important tienta. It is the only trial they get before entering a ring. If they got any more, the bulls, diabolically quick to learn, would have a fatal advantage over a bullfighter. Even in a tienta, young bulls are allowed to make no more than three or four charges at the picador. On the other hand, heifers, which will never get a chance at a torero, are worked to exhaustion to study theif future value as mothers of fighting sons.

Corn & Courage. Any bull that turns tail and runs is promptly tagged for sale or slaughter. To the rest, sharp-eyed experts award ratings which, in addition to B.P., include B.T. (Bravo Tarde), B. (for Bravo) and S. (Superior). By association with tamer bulls, the grass-raised fighters are gradually taught to eat muscle-building portions of corn, barley mash, chickpeas and beans. Vaqueros on quick-footed ponies place the food on one hill, water on another several miles away. Shuttling between the two, La Punta bulls develop the sure-footed power that has enabled them at times to throw a picador and his horse five feet up and over the arena's barrier.

Aside from physical development, the breeders strive for those elusive and never-certain qualities summed up in the word bravo--comprised not of treacherous bloodlust, nor of fear, but chiefly of noble anger.

Ears & Tails. Of all the animals born at La Punta, about half are males. Only one-fourth turn out to be fighters, and only 5% prove exceptional in their one brief appearance in a ring (where bulls are either killed in fighting, slaughtered for cowardice, or--very rarely--pardoned for1 extreme bravery and sent back to live out their lives as seed bulls). Los diablos negros (the black devils) of La Punta have charged the capes of Belmonte, Manolete, and most of the other great and near-great of recent bullring history. Businesswise, La Punta's long gamble is rewarded by orders for about 35 corridas (six bulls, with two held in reserve) a season. It charges as much as 40,000 pesos ($4,624) a corrida, a price that few other ranches could ask.

For the Madrazos, there are rewards far higher than this substantial income (about $162,000 a year). These rewards approach a peak when a breeder sees the carcass of one of his bulls being dragged around an arena, amid deafening oles, minus tail and ears, the tokens awarded to a matador for an especially glorious fight against an exceptionally fine bull. Says Don Pepe, hoisting his glass of manzanilla: "You feel, perhaps, that you've helped to create something noble, something brave, which knows how to die with greatness."

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