Photography: Carlos Mediavilla
The sixth running of the bulls of this year's Sanfermin fiestas featured bulls from the Victoriano del Río bull-ranch in Madrid. It turned out to be a very fast running of the bulls and where the bulls proved to be very well-behaved and they hardly threatened the runners. The rapid bulls quickly outpaced the bell-oxen and while there were lots of trip-ups and falls, none of the runners received a goring from the horns of the bulls.
No sooner had the pack raced out together from the pens in Santo Domingo than the rapid bulls began to outpace the bell-oxen and it was the bulls who lead over the whole course of the run. It was difficult for the runners to keep up with the pace of the bulls, but some fine running could be appreciated at different stretches of the course, in spite of the large number of pile-ups and falls. As the run progressed, the pack began to loosen and soon four of the bulls were running ahead together up the slope of Santo Domingo with another two coming up behind leading the bell-oxen. At the corner of Mercaderes these four leading bulls crashed against the fencing and on the right side a small pile-up took place, but luckily, the other bulls passed on the left side and there were no immediate dangerous moments.
Along the length of the stretch in Estafeta Street, the distance between the bulls began to widen further and here the runners found more opportunities to get close in front of the horns of the bulls. The bulls charged into the arena of the bullring in pairs and quickly made their way to the pens after completing a very fast and well-behaved running which lasted just 2min. 20sec.