An award-winning Spanish matador has died after being gored in the lungs during a bullfight in the small French town of Mont de Marsan.

Professional matador, Ivan Fandino, 36, reportedly tripped on his cloak before being caught by the bull’s horns at the Aire-sur-l'Adour bullfighting festival on Saturday.

The Spaniard reportedly suffered two heart attacks while in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.

The renowned fighter had fought hundreds of bulls over his 12-year career.

Fandino is the second Spaniard to die in the arena in the last year but the first to be killed in France in almost a century.

Compatriot Victor Barrio suffered the same fate after being gored by a bull last July during a live televised event.

Spanish bullfighter gored to death in ring first time in over 20 years https://t.co/pezni5hX96 — RT (@RT_com) July 10, 2016

Barrio was the first fighter to be killed in almost 30 years in the centuries old tradition, which sees a matador face off against a bull in an oft vicious contest that usually results in the death of the animal.

Fandino was seriously injured at least twice before. In 2014, he was knocked unconscious by a bull in France and a year later he was thrown into the air by a bull in Pamplona, Spain.

He had suffered a cut to the ear while fighting his first bull of the day earlier on Saturday before his fatal encounter.

Bullfighting remains popular in Spain, with about 1,800 shows per year watched by some six million spectators.

It was banned in Catalonia by the Catalan nationalist government in 2012 though this was rescinded in 2016.