Money and resources were limited. Julia grew up in a small equestrian community in which the adults would teach the teenagers and the teenagers would teach the kids. Knowledge was passed down from one to the next and, since access to full-time training for personal horses or clinics wasn’t an affordable nor easily accessible thing, everyone had to figure out how to do it themselves. Of course, also through lots of trial and error.

As a young teenager, Julia started to take over part of the lesson program at the barn that she was boarding at. Starting out with beginners' lessons, she quickly started taking over the weekly beginner’s dressage & jumping lessons for local haul-in clients. 

At age 18, as soon as she got her driving license, Julia started to take on local clients and their horses in a mobile training setting. She started to apprentice under an equine osteopath and trainer for the next 3 years. 

Expanding her knowledge not only in regards to training, but also in regard to other important factors that play into the “trainability” of our four-legged friends,  like the allover mental well-being, physical well-being, bodywork, nutrition , saddle fit, dental care, hoof care and much more. This apprenticeship was life-changing for Julia. Growing up in an English old school military drill sergeant type of environment, the consideration of the horse was little to none. Force and fear based methods were the base language in most facilities.

Julia always had a bad gut feeling in regards to how horses were “supposed to be trained”. It wouldn’t sit well with her when her coaches or fellow equestrians would use shame and guilt tactics to have her punish her horse or “get after them”. 

Entering the apprenticeship of a holistic horse trainer was absolutely eye-opening for her. It gave her the reassurance and knowledge needed, that there are other ways, more ethical ways of training horses and building a true relationship between horse & human. She started to implement the newly learned skills and knowledge and saw great change and impact on her client's horses and her clients. 

While the mentorship was focused on the all over well-being of a horse, creating happy and healthy horses, setting them up for a long healthy life and creating a true partnership, Julia looked at her mentor's ability to break seemingly complex and complicated topics down into easy, understandable and applicable steps. 

“If I can do it, You can do it!”

Exercises that used to be withheld from the “average” rider were laying open on the table.  There wasn’t any gate keeping of knowledge, and it was all explained in easy to understand lingo. 

If more people knew about the simplicity of the how’s and why’s ,we could create a more ethical and considering world for our horses ,while also helping avoid the further mistreatment of horses due to lack of proper support and knowledge. 

Julia continued running her training business until coming to the United States, where she officially launched The Horse Center. A place in which every breed, discipline, age and background story of horse & human are welcomed. Julia’s training approach is science-based and focused around creating active two-way communication that’s considerate of the horse, creates a safe partner, delivers sustainable training results and deepens the horse-human connection.

She offers a broad and in-depth understanding of why our horses do what they do, how we can change and influence behaviors and how we can set our horses up for a successful journey and partnership with us, while truly enjoying each other's company. 

Julia continues to instruct horsemanship clinics, train well-rounded all-around horses, teaches high-quality online courses at the Horse Center Academy and makes training your own horse as accessible and easy as possible.