The bullfighting festival that pushed the construction of Ricla's bullring.
The Ricla festival marks the start of the bullfighting season in Aragon each year. It is an event of marked relevance in the regional and provincial scope, which is gaining more prestige and importance in the national calendar each year. Its beginnings date back to the 1980s and were led by Braulio Lausín.
The son of the unforgettable Gitanillo de Ricla made this Zaragoza town famous for the caliber of the bullfighters who gathered each year on the banks of the Jalón River, including Curro Romero, Rafael de Paula, El Viti, Antoñete or Luis Francisco Esplá, who along with the Aragonese matadors of each era were regulars at an event lived as a true celebration by the entire municipality and its neighboring localities.
This festival acquired so much lineage that in 1988 it was decided, after a popular consultation, to build a permanent bullring that would consolidate and give even greater magnitude to an event that grew each year but until that moment had the sheets of a portable bullring as its stage.
And so it was that on April 10, 1988, the current square was inaugurated, a small monumental with stands, bleachers, and galleries, with a poster formed by none other than Antoñete, Curro Romero, Rafael de Paula, Luis Francisco Esplá, the Aragonese bullfighter Juan Ramos and also the novice of the land Jesús San Juan who faced a novillada of the Torrestrella ranch.
However, with the grand opening of the venue, the festival and the major festivities began to decline until in 1996 they were replaced by releases of heifers and contests of cutters and roscaderos, shows that also have a lot of acceptance among the fans of the Jalón valley.
All until the businessman Ignacio Ríos took over the square a decade ago to refloat it with the same ingredients of yesteryear: figures and promises of the land. This bullring has seen in the last decade Morante, Diego Urdiales, El Fandi, Cayetano, López Simón, Diego Ventura, Guillermo Hermoso de Mendoza…
A roster of shining names that continues in 2024 with the return of a figure of the era like Juan Mora, followed by two young bullfighters with great projection like Pablo Aguado and Tomás Rufo, and possibly the two novice Aragonese with the highest billboard at present: Cristiano Torres and Aarón Palacio, who will face a beautiful enclosure with the iron of Toros de la Plata. The show is guaranteed and the continuity of this luxurious and select festival too: Long live Ricla.
Bullfighting festival tickets Ricla (Zaragoza)
Buy your official tickets for the most traditional bullfighting festival in Aragon.
