Pamplona’s own running data tells a story most coverage of the ganadería José Escolar Gil never gets to: this herd delivered eight gorings in its first three appearances at San Fermín, then produced only one goring across its next six. No other ranch running the modern encierro has swung that far from its own starting record. Most English language coverage treats José Escolar the way it treats every ganadería on the schedule, as a name attached to a single year’s injury count, with nothing about where the bloodline actually came from or why its Pamplona runs changed so completely.
That gap matters to anyone trying to understand a specific morning’s risk. The Santo Domingo stretch, where José Escolar has produced more gorings than any other section of the route, still carries the reputation the ranch earned in 2015 and 2016. Reading only that reputation, without the fuller record, means missing exactly how much the picture has shifted since.
This profile draws on the Madrid bullring Las Ventas’ own ganadería registry for the bloodline and ownership history, and on the Pamplona festival’s own running of the bulls statistics, cross checked against current 2026 season reporting, for the encierro record itself. Both are institutional sources, not secondhand summary.
From Olano to Escolar: Six Owners and an 80 Year Bloodline
The herd that runs Pamplona’s streets as José Escolar Gil did not start as José Escolar Gil. It was founded in 1940 by the Olano brothers, built from female cattle of the Cruz line together with a stud and cows from Samuel Flores. Over the next four decades it changed hands repeatedly: to José Lorenzo García, then to the sons of Lisardo Sánchez, who marketed the herd under the name Encinasola, then to the widow of a breeder named Chaves, then to José Domecq de la Riva, and then to Felino Fernández, who rebuilt the herd around stock from the ganadería of Victorino Martín, purchased from Fernández Durán and Vergara González.
In 1981, José Escolar Gil acquired the herd and kept only that Victorino Martín derived stock, discarding the rest. That decision is what defines the bloodline today. The ranch was formally registered on March 24, 1985, and its cattle now graze the finca Monte Valdetiétar, in the municipality of Lanzahíta, in the province of Ávila, registered with Spain’s Unión de Criadores de Toros de Lidia. Madrid’s Las Ventas bullring maintains the official ganadería registry entry that documents this full ownership chain.
Mid decade, in the 1980s, José Escolar added a second bloodline of Santa Coloma origin, purchased from Carmen Espinal de Blázquez and originally descended from stock associated with the bullfighter Paco Camino. For years the ranch kept the two lines separate before eventually crossing them, a decision the breed registry itself describes as producing strong results. That Santa Coloma addition is what distinguishes José Escolar’s cattle today from its two closest bloodline relatives.
The Albaserrada Line, Shared With Two Pamplona Rivals
José Escolar’s herd belongs to the Albaserrada Saltillo encaste, or bloodline family, the same lineage carried by two other ganaderías that also run at San Fermín: Victorino Martín and Adolfo Martín. All three trace back to the same foundational Albaserrada stock, which makes José Escolar’s cattle recognizable cousins to two of Pamplona’s other regular participants rather than an unrelated newcomer.
The physical type reflects that ancestry crossed with the later Santa Coloma addition. Las Ventas’ own registry describes the cattle as long backed and fine limbed, with a trait breeders call hocico de rata, a narrow, tapered muzzle. Horn development is typically strong, though individual animals sometimes lose a clean profile as the horns widen, a shape breeders term veleto or cornipaso. The dominant coat colors are cárdeno, a slate grey roan, and entrepelado, a mixed or brindled tone. For a closer look at how a toro bravo’s anatomy shapes its behavior on the route, including where its blind spots actually sit, see our physique and anatomy breakdown.
Despite sharing bloodline roots with Victorino Martín and Adolfo Martín, José Escolar has run at Pamplona far more often than either. Heading into the 2026 encierro, José Escolar will make its tenth appearance, compared with three for Victorino Martín and four for Adolfo Martín, giving José Escolar by far the largest sample of Pamplona running data among the three related herds.
2015 to 2017: The Most Chaotic Debut in Recent Pamplona Memory
José Escolar’s first appearance at San Fermín came on July 11, 2015, and it did not go the way a debut normally does. One bull refused to leave the Santo Domingo corrals as the rest of the herd departed, then had to be transported separately, directly to the Plaza de Toros, a scene the festival’s own running of the bulls data team notes had no precedent in the modern era of the encierro. That first run lasted two minutes and forty four seconds and left nine runners injured, four of them by horn.
The next two years compounded that reputation. In both 2016 and 2017, a bull separated from the herd early in the run and completed the course alone, a dangerous scenario runners call a suelto or descolgado. The 2016 loose bull seriously gored a resident of the nearby town of Cizur in the chest. Across those first three runs combined, José Escolar’s bulls left eight gorings, an average of roughly 2.7 per run, among the highest rates of any ganadería’s debut span in recent Pamplona history. It is also why Santo Domingo, the steep opening stretch of the route, remains the single section where José Escolar has produced the most gorings of any part of the course.
The Turnaround: A Measurably Safer, Faster Modern Run
What the debut years obscure is how sharply the record has since shifted. In José Escolar’s six most recent Pamplona appearances, the herd has produced just one goring, a rate of roughly 0.17 per run, down from 2.7 in its first three. No run has exceeded three minutes since 2018, and the average time across the herd’s six most recent appearances has fallen to two minutes and twenty seven seconds, faster than its overall nine run average of two minutes and forty six seconds.
Heading into 2026, José Escolar returns on Saturday, July 11, its tenth consecutive year running at San Fermín without a single year missed since that 2015 debut. It will also be the ranch’s eighth Saturday run and its fifth consecutive one, notable because Saturday encierros historically draw the largest crowds of runners onto the course. None of that erases what happened in 2015 and 2016. It does mean that a runner weighing risk by reputation alone, rather than by the fuller run by run record, is working from an outdated picture of this ganadería.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did José Escolar’s bulls first run in Pamplona?
José Escolar debuted at San Fermín on July 11, 2015. That first run lasted two minutes and forty four seconds and included a bull that refused to leave the starting corrals, an incident the festival’s own data team says had no earlier precedent in the modern encierro.
Is José Escolar the same bloodline as Victorino Martín?
Both herds descend from the Albaserrada Saltillo encaste, making them related bloodlines rather than the same herd. José Escolar’s cattle carry an added Santa Coloma bloodline introduced in the 1980s, which distinguishes its cattle from Victorino Martín’s and from the third related ranch, Adolfo Martín.
Has José Escolar’s herd gotten safer at San Fermín?
Yes, measurably. The ranch’s first three Pamplona runs produced eight gorings combined. Its six most recent runs have produced one. Average run times have also dropped, with no run exceeding three minutes since 2018.
Where is the José Escolar ranch located?
The herd is raised on the finca Monte Valdetiétar, in the municipality of Lanzahíta in the province of Ávila, and is registered with Spain’s Unión de Criadores de Toros de Lidia.
Every article on the Encierro blog is authored or reviewed by active bull runners with direct experience in Pamplona.