Moment top matador is stabbed in the groin, leaving him seriously injured as crowd recoils in horror during bullfight in Spain

A Spanish matador is recovering in hospital after being stabbed in the groin during a bullfight in front of hundreds of spectators in Madrid.

Alberto Duran, 36, performed on Sunday in the final qualifying round of the Copa Chenel bullfighting tournament in Valdemoro, south of the Spanish capital.

Footage showed the bull sticking its head into Duran’s groin and catching him with its horns as he pushed the bullfighter into the air.

The crowd recoiled in horror as the matador managed to run away from the animal.

Duran was rushed to the hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery due to serious injuries to his testicles.

While the first surgery was completed without complications, doctors later discovered a blood clot in one of Duran’s legs, meaning he had to undergo a second, urgent procedure.

The matador is currently being treated in the ICU and his condition is described as stable and improving.

The incident comes after a star bullfighter was brutally stabbed in the thigh, while another was stabbed through the backside.

Alberto Duran, 36, was performing in the final qualifying round of the Copa Chenel bullfighting tournament on Sunday when he was gored by a bull

Footage showed the bull sticking its head into Duran’s crotch

This video recording shows Duran being thrown into the air by the bull

Matador Andres Roca Rey was left in a ‘very serious’ condition after being gored at Seville’s Real Maestranza bullring last month.

Footage of the incident showed Rey almost immediately being hit in the right thigh with the bull’s horns.

The bull threw the 29-year-old on its horns several times before mounting the injured matador.

Several bullfighting assistants, known in Spanish as ‘cuadrillas’, intervened to lure the enraged animal away.

Eventually he was able to roll away, giving him enough time for several cuadrillas to pick him up and take him to safety.

The wound inflicted by the bull was 35 cm long and had two paths: one went up the leg and the other down.

The jab also caused severe damage to major muscles in Rey’s right thigh, although no major blood vessels were hit.

A few days earlier, a bull smashed its horn into the back of one of Spain’s most celebrated matadors.

The crowd was seen recoiling in horror as the matador was pierced

Morante de la Puebla, widely hailed as the ‘King of the Bullfighters’, is recovering in Viamed Hospital after being rushed from Seville’s crowded Maestranza arena on April 19.

The torero had been dealing with a bull that had positioned itself in a treacherous spot in the ring when the incident unfolded. In a daring maneuver, he failed to raise his arms in time, leaving him exposed.

Ignoring the cape’s movement, the animal attacked, grabbing him from behind at waist height before ramming its horn into his body and perforating his rectum.

Speaking from his hospital bed after being moved from intensive care, Morante said: ‘It was the most painful shot I’ve ever had. Wow, it was terrible. I felt it, looking for blood.”

He also admitted the fear he felt immediately after the attack, saying: ‘It was undoubtedly the most painful jab I have experienced in my career.’

In addition, a former matador was beaten to death last month before a bullfight.

Ricardo Ortiz, 51, was unloading bulls at a bullring in Malaga over Easter weekend when one of the animals gored him.

Ortiz came from a family with close ties to bullfighting and had retired more than twenty years ago, but remained involved in bull management in Malaga.

Spain hosts around 1,500 bullfights every year, usually coinciding with religious festivals, although numbers have declined in recent years, government figures show.

Opponents describe the events as barbaric, while fans defend them as a deep-rooted age-old art form.