Most short profiles of the ganadería Victoriano del Río open with a single sentence: founded in the 1980s by a Madrid businessman. That sentence skips four separate owners, a Santa Coloma bloodline that was later thrown out entirely, and a herd that had already been running under three different names for more than three decades before Victoriano del Río Cortés ever touched it. The real ganadería Victoriano del Río history is a chain of ownership stretching back to 1941, and the rebuild that actually created today’s herd did not happen until 1985.
That distinction matters to anyone trying to understand what actually runs through Pamplona’s streets each July. This herd has appeared in San Fermín’s encierro fifteen times since its 2010 debut, and the running data behind those appearances, an average time of 2 minutes 25 seconds and a goring rate under half a horn wound per run, is some of the most consistent of any ganadería currently on the schedule. None of that consistency traces to the 1942 date the herd still carries on paper. It traces to the 1985 decision to discard one bloodline entirely and rebuild with another.
This profile draws on the Real Unión de Criadores de Toros de Lidia’s own registry entry for the herd, corroborated by Madrid’s Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas, which maintains a matching institutional record of the same ownership chain. Both are breeders’-union and bullring records, not secondhand retellings, and they agree almost word for word on how the herd changed hands. Current Pamplona run data comes from Spanish press coverage of the 2026 San Fermín season, cross checked against the herd’s full fifteen-run history.
Four Owners Before Victoriano del Río Ever Bought a Cow
The herd that runs as Victoriano del Río today began in 1941, when the Sevillian breeder Juan Guardiola Fantoni built his own iron from cattle bought out of the Gamero Cívico brothers’ Torre Abad herd. Guardiola Fantoni’s animals took their formal registration, the antigüedad still listed on the herd’s paperwork, on July 12, 1942, when a complete novillada fought at Madrid’s Plaza de Toros.
Guardiola Fantoni died in 1947, and his herd was split among his heirs. One portion, belonging to his son Manuel Guardiola Soto, was sold in 1951 to José Luis Vázquez Garcés, who added cows and stud bulls of Santa Coloma origin to the existing Gamero Cívico stock. In 1973, the Hermanos Vázquez Silva bought the herd, and in 1982 they sold it again, this time to Leandra Díaz Martínez, who marketed the cattle under the name El Retamar.
That is the herd Victoriano del Río Cortés bought in 1985, and it is worth being precise about what he actually did with it: he did not keep it. According to the breeders’ union’s own record, he removed everything of Santa Coloma origin that El Retamar had carried and rebuilt the ganadería from scratch with different bloodlines entirely. In other words, the animal running Pamplona’s streets today shares a paper trail with the 1942 herd but almost no actual blood with it. Understanding the ganadería Victoriano del Río history means understanding that the 1985 purchase was a demolition and reconstruction, not a continuation.
Guardiola Fantoni’s other heirs took their own shares elsewhere. One line, sold to a Portuguese buyer, became the ganadería Murteira Grave. Two more shares became the ganaderías El Trébol and Castilblanco, distant bloodline cousins of the herd now running as Victoriano del Río.
The 1985 Rebuild: Domecq, Algarra, and Jandilla Blood
When Victoriano del Río Cortés cleared out the Santa Coloma stock, he replaced it with a lot from Juan Pedro Domecq Solís and a separate lot from Luis Algarra Polera, the latter including the stud bull Aldeano along with seventy cows and three stud bulls bought directly from Jandilla. He later added more cows from El Torreón, and in 2002, through a breeders’-union lottery draw open to member ranches, he acquired an eighth share of the Toros de El Torero herd, also of Juan Pedro Domecq y Díez descent.
The result is a herd built almost entirely from the Domecq encaste, one of the dominant bloodline families that share a root ancestry across Pamplona’s ganaderías. Per the bullring’s own encaste description, Domecq cattle tend to run low at the withers, fine skinned, and proportionally even, with medium horn development that can curve into a hook shape. The neck runs long and low slung, the morrillo (the muscular hump behind the neck) is well built, and coat colors run mostly black, red, chestnut, and toasted tones. Behaviorally, the same description notes that Domecq cattle tend to build intensity as an exertion continues rather than front load it, a trait that shows up in how this herd runs Pamplona’s route from Santo Domingo through to the bullring.
The cattle graze two properties: El Palomar, in Guadalix de la Sierra, Madrid, and Monte San Martín, in Mayorga, Valladolid. The registered owning company is Medianillos Ganadera, S.L., with Victoriano del Río Cortés listed as the union representative. The herd’s divisa, the colored ribbon that identifies its animals at a distance, is black and yellow, with a notch cut into both ears as the herd’s ear mark.
In 1997, the founder split part of the herd between his two sons, Ricardo and Pablo del Río, creating a second iron, Toros de Cortés, which grazes a separate finca in Guadalix de la Sierra and carries its own straw and red divisa. That second iron obtained its own registration in 2007 and is a distinct herd from the one that runs Pamplona, though it shares the same root bloodline. In 2008, the ranch also pursued a bull cloning project on the stud Alcalde, a Jandilla-line animal, extracting genetic material to preserve his line, a breeding decision rather than a running one, but one that underlines how deliberately this ganadería manages its own bloodline.
Fifteen Years Running Pamplona’s Streets: What the Numbers Actually Show
Victoriano del Río debuted in Pamplona’s encierro in 2010 and has run every San Fermín held since (the festival itself was cancelled entirely in 2020 and 2021, a gap that affected every ganadería, not this one specifically). Through its first fourteen appearances, from 2010 through 2025, the herd’s bulls covered the 875 meter route from the Santo Domingo corrals to the bullring in an average of 2 minutes 25 seconds, a pace that places it among the fastest ganaderías running in Pamplona this century.
The fastest of those runs clocked 2 minutes 13 seconds, a time matched twice, in 2016 and again in 2022. The second fastest, 2 minutes 14 seconds, was also matched twice, in 2013 and 2023. Only one run in fourteen years went over three minutes: July 9, 2014, which took 3 minutes 23 seconds and stands as the herd’s slowest Pamplona appearance on record. That means 13 of 14 runs, roughly 93 percent, finished under three minutes.
The safety record is similarly consistent. Across those fourteen runs, the herd produced six gorings, an average of 0.43 per run, and ten of the fourteen runs, 71 percent, finished with no goring at all. Only four of the fourteen produced any horn wound whatsoever. The herd’s best clean streak ran three consecutive years, from 2015 through 2017, without a single goring. Its five most recent runs before 2026, in 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025, averaged 2 minutes 24 seconds, a figure nearly identical to its full historical average, which is a notable degree of year to year regularity compared with other ganaderías on the San Fermín schedule.
July 9, 2026: The Fifteenth Appearance
Victoriano del Río ran the third encierro of San Fermín 2026 on Thursday, July 9, its fifteenth appearance in Pamplona since the 2010 debut. The herd left the Santo Domingo corrals tightly bunched and running fast, holding that pace through the uphill start. By Calle Mercaderes and into Estafeta, three bulls had opened a gap ahead of the other three, and the speed through a crowded Estafeta produced numerous runner falls, including one runner who fell directly in the animals’ path and was run over without being gored. The run finished in 2 minutes 24 seconds, essentially matching the herd’s recent five-run average.
The clean stretch did not hold. One runner was gored in the arm in the Telefónica section, the run’s most dangerous point this time out, ending what had been, entering the day, a two-year run without a goring (2024 and 2025 had both finished clean). The morning’s medical count included eight total callouts for treatment. The herd’s overall Pamplona tally after July 9, 2026, stands at fifteen appearances and roughly 96 bulls run through the city’s streets since 2010, a run of animals that has, more often than not, finished the course quickly, tightly grouped, and without incident.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did the ganadería Victoriano del Río first run in Pamplona?
The herd debuted in San Fermín’s encierro in 2010 and has run every year the festival itself has been held since, missing only the 2020 and 2021 editions that were cancelled festival wide for every ganadería, not this one specifically. Its 2026 appearance on July 9 was its fifteenth.
Is Victoriano del Río’s current herd related to the one that carried its name in the 1940s?
Only on paper. The iron’s registration dates to a 1942 novillada fought by a Guardiola Fantoni herd that later changed hands four times. When Victoriano del Río Cortés bought the herd in 1985, he removed all of its Santa Coloma bloodline and rebuilt it from Domecq, Algarra, and Jandilla stock. The current animals are a 1985 reconstruction that inherited a decades old registration date, not a continuous bloodline from the 1940s.
How fast and how safe is Victoriano del Río’s herd in the Pamplona encierro?
Across its first fourteen Pamplona runs, the herd averaged 2 minutes 25 seconds, with a fastest time of 2 minutes 13 seconds and only one run over three minutes. Its goring rate sits at 0.43 per run, with 71 percent of its runs finishing without a single horn wound, a consistently fast and comparatively clean record among the ganaderías currently running San Fermín.
Where does the ganadería Victoriano del Río raise its bulls?
The animals that run Pamplona graze two properties, El Palomar in Guadalix de la Sierra, Madrid, and Monte San Martín in Mayorga, Valladolid. The herd is registered with the Real Unión de Criadores de Toros de Lidia, Spain’s breeders’ union, under the black and yellow divisa with a notch cut into both ears.
Every article on the Encierro blog is authored or reviewed by active bull runners with direct experience in Pamplona.