Ricky Gervais leads outrage at footage of Spaniards wrestling terrified horses at cruel Rapa das Bestas festival
RICKY Gervais has blasted a Spanish horse wrestling festival as "absolute filth".
The comedian took to Twitter to vent his disgust at footage of the Rapa das Bestas festival which sees wild horses corralled into small arenas.
Locals in the Galicia region then attempt to trim the manes and delouse the animals before returning them to the wild.
Rapa sas Bestas translates as The Capture of the Beasts and is a tradition that is more than 400 years old.
Every year several thousand Spaniards attend the event.
But the Brit comic was by no means the only one outraged over the video of the event with some branding it "disgusting" and others labelling the people "barbarians".
One replied: "Never wanted to see someone’s teeth kicked in so bad in my life."
"Shame on Spain"
Another wrote: "Shame on them. Shame on Spain."
A third thundered: "Back to the dark ages. Leave them alone ffs!!!"
However one attempted to defend the practice and said: "Ok, I'll just try to explain this: it's not wrestling it's cutting the manes of wild horses, mending their wounds and removing lice and other parasites. After that they are freed again.
"It may seem wild but horses are not hurt in any way, or at least that's not the aim."
The 58-year-old After Life star has been a longstanding supporter of animal rights having recently backed new animal cruelty laws in Britain.
Dog fight organisers, farmers who neglect horses and sick thugs who abuse puppies or kittens will all be hit by the lengthy jail sentence.
The new five year punishment for animal cruelty is a huge increase on the current maximum term of six months, and comes after complaints that abusers have got away with soft sentences in some horrific cases.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368. You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.