"I'm incredibly grateful to horses", Aurélien Mateo tells us straight away. We're certainly in the presence of a true enthusiast here. "I can never be thankful enough for what horses have done for me: they helped me to grow up and meet wonderful people".

After training as an equine osteopath in Switzerland and England for five years, Aurélien Mateo quickly became acquainted with the specificities of the horse, as he explains: "A horse's feet can be considered as its four foundations. Four small foundations that are static but also dynamic in the case of a horse. And if these foundations aren't perfect, however much you manipulate the back, you will never achieve an optimum result. It's the same for a building: if the foundations aren't right, you'll never get rid of the cracks." Having understood this, Aurélien Mateo noticed that he sometimes managed to sort out back problems by only working on the feet. This is what encouraged him to opt for a career as a blacksmith. "And because I wanted to do things well, I started by working with Nelson Pessoa's blacksmith, someone who is recognised and experienced. That's how I ended up in Belgium." A flat land he hasn't left since.

Has his motivation waned over the years? Certainly not: "When I shoe a new horse / when I re-shoe a horse and my customer comes to see me and tells me with stars in his eyes, 'Thank you, Aurélien. Thanks to you, my horse really flew', that's all it takes to make me happy. That's why I get up every morning." Ultimately, his career is composed of stories of encounters between him and his horses, but also between him and his customers and the people with whom he continues to learn his trade. "I regularly go on trips. I take the plane to meet professionals and question what I do so that I can continue to improve", he concludes.