Know Your Bulls
The ranches that will be sending bulls to Pamplona for San Fermin this year, have been announced, and Bill Hillmann reviewed them for us. We don’t know the exact order the bulls will run in this year though the Miura have run that last day of fiesta in recent years.
You can ask Bill more specific questions about any of the ranches or particular bull running questions in the Runners’ Forum.
La Palmosilla
This Will be La Pamosilla’s first time running at San Fermin we have no stats or any idea what to expect. The ranch is located in Cadiz in the South of Spain and bred from the bulls of Domecq and Núñez del Cuvillo and have only been in existence since 1996.
Jandilla
The Jandilla had a streak from around 2002 to 2015 as easily the most dangerous ranch to run with an astonishing 29 gorings inflicted in that period. A bull named Cappuchino from the Jandilla killed Daniel Jimeno Romero in 2009. But the Jandilla have only produced four gorings in the last five years which is fairly tame for them.
Puerto De San Lorenzo
We don’t have much data on Puerto de San Lorenzo other than one of the fastest runs in history in 2017 when they cleared th course in 2 minutes and 23 seconds.
Miura
The Miura are the most prestigious bulls in all of Spain. Nicknamed “The Bulls of Death” they have killed many Matadors in the bull ring. They tend to not gore runners in the street unless one of the bulls separates and becomes a Suelto then they gore a lot of runners because they have abnormally wide and large hoofs which allow them to turn quickly in the street. The Miura do however inflict a lot of traumas from causing people to fall and knocking people down and trampling them. In recent years the Miura have been incredibly fast clocking in three times of 2:10 or less.
Victoriano Del Rio
The Victoriano del Rio ranch is located near Madrid rather than the south of Spain where most of the other prestigious bull ranches are located. They are large and incredibly beautiful animals and have only gored four people in Pamplona and Bill Hillmann was one of them in 2014.
Cebada Gago
The Cebada Gago bulls have inflicted the most gorings in the entire known history of the San Fermin encierro with 56 gorings in thirty appearances. They produced the bloodiest run in recent years in 2016 when they gored seven people.
José Escolar
The José Escolar ranch has the highest gorings per run stat of all the bulls they have gored 8 runners in just four years of running in Pamplona. Last year was the first year they didn’t gore anyone during their run up the street in Pamplona.
Núñez Del Cuvillo
The Núñez del Cuvillo have gored ten runners in their nine appearances in Pamplona. Famously one of their bulls named Idilico was pardoned while facing the greatest living bullfighter Jose Tomas. He returned to pasture where he sired 66 bulls. So when you are running with the Núñez del Cuvillo you are running with the bulls with legendary blood in their veins.