Bullfighter José Ortega dies at 75

The Malaga bullfighter José Ortega Ríos has died in his hometown at the age of 75, victim of an acute heart attack, according to ‘Aplausos’. Born on August 16, 1949 in Malaga, he took the alternative in his homeland in 1973 in a luxury poster, with Curro Romero as godfather and José María Manzanares as witness. The bulls were from the Juan Mari Pérez-Tabernero Montalvo ranch.

As ‘El Cossío’ remembers, on the afternoon of the ceremony “he pleased his countrymen, who granted him an ear from the doctorate horn and another from the cattle that closed the place.”

Confirmation of the alternative would come seven years later. It was on June 29, 1980 with a bull from Prieto de la Cal. He did it at the hands of Raúl Sánchez and in the presence of Lázaro Carmona. However, luck would not be with him that afternoon. His last walk, along with Monaguillo and Galán, was in Malagueta in 1983, a plaza where he had achieved one of his most resounding triumphs four seasons earlier with Ybarra cattle.