There are four professional organizations of Spanish ganaderos (breeders of fighting bulls):
"Why four?" you may be asking yourself.. Well, thanks to Martín Ruíz Gárate, President of the association El Toro de Madrid (whose site may be visited for contact information on these groups) here's the story:
The "Unión de Criadores de Toros de Lidia" was created at the beginning of this century (it's the oldest of all the groups) with the intention of standing up to the demands of the matadors who, at that time, had begun to refuse to fight bulls from certain ganaderias (Miura bulls, for example). Because of this, several ganaderos created the Union, structured so that if a matador vetoed bulls from a Unión ganaderia, the rest of the ganaderos would refuse to sell bulls for that matador to fight. In addition, the ganaderos established a series of blood-line purity requirements in order "keep out" the common livestock breeders. As time passed, the bullfighting regulations established that only bulls from the Unión's ganaderias could be fought in corridas and novilladas (with picadors).
Later, the "Associación Nacional de Ganaderías de Lidia" was formed, whose bulls could only be fought in becerradas and comic-bullfight events. This association was made up of a large part of the breeders who were not able to gain admittance into the Unión, and also of many new-breed ganaderos who, though they bought their animals from the Unión ganaderias, could not belong to it because their brands were not included in the original association. When a ganadero that did not belong to the UCTL wanted to join the Unión, he had to buy bulls from a Unión ganaderia, and later pass a test of a number of novilladas (unsure how many were required) and one corrida without a single bull receiving "banderillas negras." With this situation, it was obvious that the UCTL held an intolerable monopoly, and the prices charged for their animals soared astronomically.
When Spain entered the European Economic Union, it became necessary to abolish those obsolete regulations and monopolies. Now any ganaderia's bulls can be fought in any kind of taurine event, although the UCTL continues to have (less and less, however) an arrogant attitude. Every day there are more ganaderos from other groups whose bulls are appearing in major corridas.
Regarding the other associations of ganaderos, one can say that they include the ganaderias that for one reason or another can't belong to either of the first two groups.
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