At the foot of the vineyards outside a sleepy village in northern France, Sabine Rouas and her steed Aston, a 1.4-tonne (3,000-pound) bull, make stately progress. A van pulls to a halt and the bemused driver takes out his phone to record the scene. Aston's outings often trigger the same reaction, and give Sabine a chuckle. "Honestly, I didn't invent this," she says. "Look around the world, people ride all sorts of animals -- ostriches, camels, elephants." Aston is a local celebrity in the Meuse region, and now around the world.