MERIDA (Mexico): “When I’m bullfighting I don’t think about anything. I just concentrate and listen to my dad,” 11-year-old Michelito says calmly after killing six young bulls in a Mexican arena.

“My shoulder hurts a bit,” adds the Franco-Mexican matador, who has participated in some 160 bullfights, or corridas, since he was five.

He was talking about his most recent bullfight as he played a guitar at home with his family in Merida, in southeastern Yucatan state.

Michelito Lagravere Peniche killed six young male bulls in front of several thousand spectators on a January weekend at a Merida bull ring, a feat his family are seeking to register with Guinness World Records.

Michelito’s father, 46-year-old French bullfighter Michel Lagravere, directs Merida’s bullfighting school and fought for his son to be allowed to take part in the weekend spectacle.

His mother, Diana Peniche, the head of Merida’s bullfighting arena, said proudly that her son’s talent was “innate”.

The local human rights commission, however, tried to prevent Michelito’s latest battle in a country where bullfights still draw crowds and many promoters see baby-faced bullfighters as a way to attract more spectators.

Authorities in France banned Michelito from two fights last summer following protests from anti-bullfighting associations, even though children in France can take part in battles called “becerradas” against calves they do not kill.

Spain only allows matadors who are 16 or older.

Mexico, though, has no age limits or restrictions on young fighters, making it a training ground for aspiring toreros as young as six.

Michelito has a fight in Veracruz, eastern Mexico, this month and another in Panama in March.

The Human Rights Commission of Yucatan State last week persuaded the public prosecutor for the defence of minors to study the case against the Merida fight, but the event was only briefly suspended and there were no protests.

“People here (in Merida) are mostly in favour of corridas,” Jorge Alfonso Victoria Maldonado, the commission president, told AFP.

“Personally I think there is an obvious disproportion between an 11-year-old child who barely weighs 30 or 35 kilos and a beast which can weigh 250 kilos,” Maldonado said.

Michelito’s maternal grandmother once showed the boy films of fighters being gored by bulls in an attempt to warn the boy of the dangers when he first showed interest in bullfighting at around the age of four.

“I tried to scare him. I said to him: ‘Look, Michelito. Don’t do that because it’s very hard and could harm you’,” his grandmother said.

“But he replied: ‘It’s nothing and it passes. It’s only temporary’,” she added.

An hour before entering the bull ring for his recent fight, Michelito laughed as he watched TV in bed with his brother, also an aspiring bullfighter.

Spectators waved white handkerchiefs and shouted “Ole” as the 4-foot-4 inch-tall child matador strode into the arena.

As the bullfight progressed, Michelito desperately pursued the injured, disoriented bulls which ignored his high-pitched shouts.

But finally the frustration led to victory and he was awarded two bull’s ears to prove it, much to the delight of the crowd and Mexico’s bullfighting promoters.

“What are we looking for these days when there’s a limited number of bullfighters? To boost bullfighting,” said Pedro Haces, president of the Mexican Bullfighting Association.

“And suddenly you meet a diamond among a thousand opals.”

Michelito left the bull ring with cuts and scratches as well as an aching shoulder, but said he had not been afraid and had never been seriously hurt.

“I feel very deep things when I bullfight, I feel them with my soul,” Michelito said.—AFP