As a male calf born on a small cattle farm in France, Aston was originally destined to be slaughtered for meat, but after forming a bond with a horse trainer he became a showjumping bull instead.
Five years ago, Sabine Rouas, a horse trainer from Strasbourg, France, had just lost a horse that she had spent 20 years of her life with and felt that she couldn’t get attached to a horse anymore. Instead, she became interested in a family of cows living on a nearby organic milk farm. One of the cows she spent time with was pregnant at the time, and Sabine believes that the calf may have gotten used to her voice while still in its mother’s womb, because soon after it was born, it started following her around whenever she came by. Unfortunately, the farmer wasn’t interested in keeping a bull on a milk farm, so he planned to have the calf, named M309 at the time, slaughtered at only three months. But Sabine wasn’t going to let that happen.
