They said about him that he put himself before the bull with power and bravery. He almost seemed not to know fear as soon as he stepped out into the ring. and, with his character and personality, he swept the most important squares in Spain. Today marks forty years since that eternal goring, the one that ended Paquirri’s life in Pozoblanco (Córdoba).
The tragedy was evident from the precise moment he was attacked by the animal. But he, accustomed to looking death in the face, maintained the fortitude, which could only be expected from a right-hander who became a legend, until the end. “He opens everything he has to open, the rest is in his hands. And calm down, doctor“, he would say to Eliseo Morán when he entered, carried by his crew, into the plaza’s infirmary.
© ARCHIVE HELLO!What perhaps some forgot is that the man who achieved so much success on the albero, already suffered, some time before, another fuck that almost cost him his life.
It was in 1978. Then he was married to Carmina Ordóñezhis first love, and the rumors of a possible separation – which would arrive in 1979, although they would sign the divorce in 1982 – were already loud. HELLO! she sent a journalist, Santy Arriazuto Seville to find out the truth: if, in fact, the marriage was going through a deep crisis, or, on the contrary, it was just gossip.
What was not expected, as he himself told in his chronicle, is that, on his trip to the capital of Seville, I would have to cover a very different story.
“The most serious goring”
In a bullfight in the Maestranza, Paquirri suffered “a very serious fuck” when he was fighting his second bull. After placing the two flags, the bullfighter stayed between the animal’s antlers. The spectators they held their breath. Upon joining, it was discovered that his legs were covered in blood.
His father-in-law, Antonio Ordóñez, launched from the barrierand ‘El Viti’ – another legendary bullfighter – made him a tourniquet on the way to the infirmary, where the swordsman, Ramón, Alvarado, prayed between sobs: “My God! My God! What gorings! The master It’s bad, very bad, my God!”
Very worried, Carmina arrived at the operating room, with a contorted face, “but showing great integrity,” accompanied by her sister, Belén.
Minutes later, Francisco was transferred to the Our Lady of Fátima clinic, where He underwent an operation that lasted three hours –and received more than a hundred stitches-.
The next morning, he assured HELLO!, still convalescing, in bed, that he was “up to the limit” – a word used in bullfighting slang to reflect fear – and, above all, he had in his mind to his ‘Nano’ and his ‘Picúo’ – as he affectionately called his sons Cayetano and Francisco, who was also in the square that day -.
© GETTY IMAGES
© GETTY IMAGESa premonition
Carmina confessed to journalist José María Íñigo that she wanted the bulls to be “the shaver the better and with corks on the tips.” Although he had grown up in a bullfighting family -she was the daughter, granddaughter, niece and wife of a bullfighter-, she was not used to seeing her husband fight a duel with a bull. She was overwhelmed every time she had to go out into the ring and prayed to Esperanza and the Christ of Triana for Paquirri to return home safely.
“I don’t think anyone can get used to pain. The only thing you can do is adapt, accept it and be resigned,” he explained to HELLO! Furthermore, on this occasion, she had a bad omen. A terrible premonition before the tragedy.
“Three fairs ago, Juan Carlos (Beca Belmonte), my brother-in-law, commented that he didn’t like the gray and gold suit at all. That stuck with me. I’m super superstitious and I wasn’t happy when he went out into the ring dressed in gray and gold. Then, being at home, she was nervous, worried…” and, indeed, her worst omens came true.
© GtresEven so, he explained to us, it didn’t even cross his mind to advise Paquirri to away from the rings. He knew that bullfighting was his life “and he has every right in the world to continue bullfighting.”
His mind seemed to do, however, a strange pulse with your heartwho told him something quite different: “I would like the truth to be withdrawn. Forever!”
Leaving aside her sadness at seeing her husband in the hospital bed – “this makes me feel closer to him because he needs more of me” – Carmina had the strength to deny HELLO! any crisis about your marriage: “No, there is nothing true about that. Not at all. What happens is that there are comments for everything and that people talk too much. At this moment, I can tell you that it is not “There is a crisis in our marriage.”
They were rumors that, in the end, became true a year later. Their paths would separate in 1979.but his, as his eldest son, Francisco, would say, would be the “most civilized breakup” that he had ever seen in his life.
