Brading ring

Pleased to see yesterday that the bull ring at Brading was still all present and correct, and had not been seen off by the RSPCA as a relic of a barbarous past. Brading bull baiting being a practice, which, according to the off-ring ticket, was wrongly believed to improve the flavour of the resultant beef.

Not used, according to the on-ring ticket, since 1820, and not, in any event, really up to the same standard as the rather older bull ring in, for example, Béziers.

But oddly, reference 1 while making a big deal of the annual feria there, only seems to offer a programme for that in 2014. Did the RSPCA get to them, despite a hint turned up by google that they do not actually kill bulls in the bull fights there any more?

See reference 2 for the last recorded thoughts on the subject.

Reference 1: http://www.beziers-in-mediterranee.com/decouvrir/cote-ville/feria-de-beziers.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=brading+bull.