Can I stand here for a moment and look at you?

My heart overflows. Your stories interest me, as much as my own. Maybe it’s the same. The mirror, I didn’t know what I looked like. There was nothing, even though I was standing there.

Ramon Laborda Tejero, El Chato de Zaragoza

1859-1931

The banderilla Ramón Laborda (El Chato de Zaragozza) suffered several accidents in his career, among others in Zaragoza, where he had two serious horn damages. He also had another mishap, but not caused by bull horns but by an anarchist’s bullet.

During the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 bullfights were arranged and on June the 5th, when the bullfighters ride in an open landau to the Plaza Antonio Montes, two shots fired by the Swedish artist Ivan Aguéli towards the right side of the carriage. El Chato was slightly wounded in the left arm and during the trial of Ivan Aguéli, El Chato said:

– It was just a scratch.