Matador gored in the buttocks after stabbing bull

A leading Spanish matador has been gored in a bullfight after the animal he stabbed rammed its horns into his buttocks, sending him flying.

When Enrique Ponce, 48, went in for the kill at the El Puerto de Santa Maria stadium, the bull flipped him over, causing him to lie on his front shielding his head.

Despite the scare, the Valencian bullfighter was not seriously injured, with Spanish media reporting only torn knee ligaments and bruising.

The bull was eventually killed, and Mr Ponce went on to slay a second.

The fight saw thousands gather at the historic stadium in Cadiz, Andalusia on the bullring’s 140th anniversary.

It is not the first time Mr Ponce, who is one of the country’s top matadors, has had to deal with a bull fighting back. Last year, a more severe goring left him requiring knee surgery and a 10cm (4 inch) injury to his buttock.

In 2014, while opening the Las Fallas festival in Valencia, a bull broke his collarbone and several of his ribs.

The pandemic appears to have hit the controversial tradition’s popularity, as the first, sparsely attended fight in July after lockdown saw increasing calls for the bloodsport to be banned.

“Have we not already had an overdose of death and pain in these past months?” Carmen Ibarlucea of animal rights group La Tortura No Es Cultura (Torture Is Not Culture) said at the time.

“They return to the bullrings and they mercilessly and tearlessly demand more public money to torture and see a peaceful herbivore dying. Meanwhile we, a social majority, are now calling for a true culture of peace and solidarity.”

A May survey by Electromania showed nearly half of respondents (47 per cent) support a ban, while 18 per cent opposed it and a third were neutral.