Bullfeathers

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1999:

Madrid regional government
children’s rights ombudsman
Javier Urra on January 5 told media
that he will soon formally ask the
regional assembly to bar children under
age 14 from bullrings. “We do not
object to bullfighting as such,” Urra
stated. “It is part of our culture and
some say it is an art. But there are ages
at which it should not be viewed.”
Urra’s request will have precedent: the
Catalona regional government barred
children from bullrings in December
1998. Concern about children at bullfights
may have been prompted, indirectly,
when a man was spotted carrying
a baby in a August 1998 running-ofthe-bulls
at Leganes, near Madrid,
accompanyied by a man who hand-led
children of approximately ages three
and five.

Their motive was apparently
to see the bullfight free, a traditional
perk for Leganes bullrunners.
Peruvian indigenous activist
Celso Del Carmen reportedly leaped
into the ring at the Acho c o r r i d a i n
Lima during the first bullfight of the
current season and made two passes at
the bull with a cape before police
dragged him out. Del Carmen, according
to Associated Press writer M o n t e
H a y e s, was protesting “the lack of
opportunity for those of dark skin” to
become bullfighters.
Coveting the brighter lights
and bigger bucks available in U.S.
rodeo, the Mexican midget bullfighting
troupe Los Enanitos Toreros de
America recently came north of the border
to perform at the Tucson Rodeo
Grounds. Wrote M. Scot Skinner o f
the Arizona Star, “In addition to
midgets chasing livestock, you had
livestock chasing midgets. Whenever
there was a lull, one midget or another
would fall on his butt in the dirt.
Children of all ages giggled at the sight
of midgets hitting each other with plastic
bats, midgets acting sloppy drunk,
midgets doing hoochie-mama dances,
tropical midgets in big Afro wigs, and
of course midgets in drag. The crowd
roared when a mid-sized calf chased
one or more of the midgets and made
them, yes, fall down on their butts in
the dirt. The midgets circled the creature,
threw ropes around his neck,
yanked on his tail, and finally hog-tied
him. Earlier, during a comedic skit that
was long on pratfalls, a military man
berated his troops, which included flatulent
midgets, a hag of a midget, and a
flamboyant midget in pink underwear.”
Lifetime American Quarter
Horse Association member Tina
Trenner asks that letters be sent to the
AQHA at POB 200, Amarillo, Texas,
to “let them know in no uncertain terms
that you want jerk-down calf roping
abolished as an AQHA event.”
Trenner, a multi-time award-winning
quarter horse trainer, whose daughter
Cat Trenner was a multi-time championship
quarter horse rider, requests that
copies be sent to her c/o Sunshine
Ranch, 8716 Haven St., Las Vegas,
NV 89123. Trenner previously asked
the AQHA to ban jerk-down
roping––long since banned by most
other rodeo regulatory bodies––on
March 7, 1998. According to Trenner,
a former AQHA president responded
that rodeo cowboys “are real men, and
you’ll never stop them from throwing
calves on the ground and tying them
down––do you think these guys will
start wearing little lace panties?”