PORTUGUESE BULL FIGHT, MONT DE MARSAN JULY 2014

It's all in the title, isn't it? I was invited to go to a Portuguese-style bullfight in Mont de Marsan by a near neighbour, Henri. 
What makes it Portuguese is that the matador (not the right name) is on horseback and they don't kill the bull. Or not in the ring, anyway. I couldn't say, and didn't want to find out, what happens to the bull after the fight. 
It was pretty impressive though, primarily as a display of horseman-(and woman)-ship. Practically the whole fight is carried out from horseback, the horse having no protection from the bull but the skill of rider and horse. It is amazing that horses and riders are not touched by the bulls.

There are some distractors in the ring and, at the end, of the contest, 8 of them line up, one behind the other so that the bull cannot see how many of them there are, and tempt the bull to charge them. The reason why there is a number of them is to absorb the thrust of the bull. One of these men then goes to the bull and throws a loop over its horns so that it can be taken from the ring. This looks to be the most dangerous (from the human point of view) part of the whole performance and there was quite a sprinkling of human blood on the sand at the end of each bout.