Shocking Video Shows Matador Gored at Spanish Bullfight
This is the moment when a young bullfighter was gored through the throat and face by a 70-stone bull during the man’s first tournament.
The Daily Mail reports that the matador suffered gruesome injuries and is fighting for his life in hospital. We don’t like hearing about anyone – whether they have two legs of four – being hurt, but unlike the matador – who voluntarily chose to risk his life by participating in this cruel spectacle – the bull was given no choice.
In a typical bullfight, the bull enters an arena and is approached by men on blindfolded horses who drive lances into his back and neck, which impairs his ability to lift his head. Then, more men enter on foot and proceed to distract him and dart around him while plunging banderillas – bright sticks with a sharp harpoon point – into his back. When the bull has become weakened from blood loss, the matador finally appears and – after provoking a few exhausted charges from the dying animal – tries to kill him with a sword. If he misses, succeeding only in further mutilating the bull, an executioner is called in to stab the exhausted animal to death.
The executioner’s dagger is supposed to cut the animal’s spinal cord, but even this cruel stroke can be botched, leaving him conscious but paralysed as he’s chained by his horns and dragged out of the arena. If the crowd is happy with the matador, the bull’s ears and tail are cut off and presented as a trophy.
Every year, more than 40,000 living beings are massacred in this way in Spain’s bullrings as part of a barbaric tradition that has no place in the modern world.
What You Can Do
Please sign our petition to Spain’s Prime Minister calling for a national ban on bullfights and bull runs in that country:
