Top bullfighter gored

One of Spain’s most promising young matadors, was gored by a bull that dug his horn into the bullfighter’s left leg and flipped him.

Julian Lopez, 18, who goes by the name El Juli, suffered a gash eight inches deep, but was in stable condition because the horn missed his vital arteries, a doctor said.

Lopez was taking on the third bull of the day in the San Isidro Festival at Madrid’s Las Ventas stadium when the animal caught his leg.

Spanish television repeated instant-replays of the incident, in which Lopez was swung through the air and slammed onto the ground, with the bull still butting into the toreador.

The matador’s father, also named Julian, was shown crying in his stadium seat as his son was carried out of the ring with blood dripping from the wound.

Maximo Garcia Padros, the doctor, was quoted on El Mundo newspaper’s online edition as saying that Lopez would be unable to walk for at least a week.

However, he said the matador was mainly ‘‘angry that he hadn’t finished his afternoon at Las Ventas’’.

Lopez, considered by many as bullfighting’s hottest prospect in decades, has suffered injuries before in the ring, including a serious goring to the bone of his right leg two years ago that left him out of action for weeks.