Spanish bullfighter gored in testicles

A Spanish bullfighter gored in the testicles at the weekend by a bull he was fighting left hospital on Tuesday.

The huge black fighting bull reared its head and thrust its left horn into Marcos Galan's groin, lifting him in the air, after he thrust two spears into the animal's back on Sunday at Madrid's Las Ventas bullring, Spain's largest.

The bull's right horn went through his blue and white jacket, knocking him to the ground and he was dragged to the ground before other bullfighters used their capes to lure the animal away, video images showed.

The footage shows Marcos walking to the bullring's infirmary where he underwent surgery before being taken to Madrid's Hospital San Francisco de Asis.

The infirmary said in its medical report that he had suffered a "bull horn wound in the scrotum which caused bruising and evisceration of the left testicle."

Marcos was discharged from the hospital on Tuesday morning and ordered to rest at home for the next few days.

"It was not such a big deal, although it caught me in the back and in a very painful area. In the end I just needed to have my scrotum sewed," he told local newspaper El Semanal de la Mancha at his home in Alcazar de San Juan, about 120 kilometres (75 miles) south of Madrid.

The newspaper published a picture of Marcos smiling and giving the thumbs up signal as he rested in his hospital bed surrounded by his brother and two friends.

Marcos is a "banderillero" whose job is to jab the bull with two barbed sticks called "banderillas" before the animal faces a matador alone in the ring.

The goring took place on the last night of the month-long Feria de San Isidro, the Spanish capital's biggest bullfighting festival held each year at the 25,000-seat Las Ventas bullring.

The festival was called off last year for the first time in more than three decades after bulls gored two matadors and tossed a third into the air. All three men were hospitalised but survived.