Picador
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Picador (disambiguation).
A picador (pl. picadores) is one of the pair of horsemen in a Spanish bullfight who jabs the bull with a lance. Although most people believe that a picador's primary purpose is to weaken the bull's massive neck muscles, this is not the case. The picador's primary function is to pierce the animal's circulatory system, and thereby lower its blood pressure, so that the enraged bull does not have a heart attack (as they sometimes do, if a picador is not used and the bull's blood pressure is not lowered). The bull's neck muscles do fatigue, however, as a result of the bull charging the picador's horse and trying to lift the horse with its horns. They perform in the tercio de varas which is the first of the three stages in a Spanish bullfight.
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