San Antón - yet more animal cruelty

Horses leap bonfires in controversial festival

More than 100 horses and riders leapt the flames of roaring bonfires in a small Spanish town in a centuries-old festival that has raised the ire of animal rights activists.

Smoke and flames filled the night in San Bartolomé de Pinares, a central Spanish town of some 600 inhabitants, in the annual festival held on Thursday, the eve of Saint Anthony's Day for the patron saint of animals.

One by one, horses and their riders jumped the flames of large bonfires lit in the narrow, paved streets of the town, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) northwest of Madrid.

Source: Thelocal

 

 

 

Vocabulary:

to leap (jump) -

a bonfire -

roaring (adj) -

a flame -

the eve of -

narrow -

lit -

paved -

to sit astride -

fiercely -

to date back -

concerned (worried) -

welfare -

to no avail -

to bless -

a mane -

a tail -

plaited -

to catch fire -

to sprinkle -

evil -

to ride  (rode, ridden) -

to engulf -

indeed -

to sting -

a youngster -

to pass down -

a helmet -

checkered -

the reins (of a horse) -

to reject -

to slip -

harm (n) -

to tame -