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Bring on the Dancing Horses
Julie Jensen has turned her long-term love of horses into a brilliant business that brings kids happiness, magic, joy, and, for those who need it, horse-led healing experiences.
Julie Jensen has turned her long-term love of horses into a brilliant business that brings kids happiness, magic, joy, and, for those who need it, horse-led healing experiences.
When it comes to family trees, Julie Jensen wears hers on her arm.
Her tattoo, climbing her left forearm, bears the names of her two adult sons. But just as importantly the soaring bird represents one of the special counsellors at her business. The counsellor is a mare named Phoenix, and the business is Sparkles & Unicorns.
Sparkles & Unicorns is housed on a rambling property where horses and dogs are as much a part of the team as the volunteers who tend to them, and the woman at the heart of it.
Phoenix — now 20 — was born at a tough time in Julie’s life. She now rightfully heads the list of ‘staff’, recorded on a board in the barn, which doubles and triples as an activity space, kitchen, and is also where Julie lays her own head at night.
The property, complete with a little patchwork quilt of paddocks, is not only headed up by a tough, resilient woman, it is run through with strong female energy. One of Julie’s mares, Ngati, gave birth to Phoenix, and Phoenix gave birth to Ember, now 10.
Services offered at the property in Pyes Pa, Tauranga include led treks through a lovely nature walk on a neighbouring property, school holiday programmes and joyful romps with ponies or ‘unicorns’ at children’s birthday parties
The first party was held in April 2018, for about 40 members of a huge, happy Samoan family.
“They all put on the dress-ups. Even the big men wore tutus. It was fantastic.”
The other side of Sparkles & Unicorns is offering tailored respite sessions for those who need them.
It’s a place where children with muddled heads or angry hearts — sometimes both — and their families can come to get some relief. Some come year after year for counsel and care with Julie and her team, both the volunteers and horses. For here, horses are revered and respected as counsellors in their own right.
“We had a six-year-old who came every year. He rode a great big Clydesdale here. He had anger issues, but she was so gentle though she was 600kg. You could just see a change in him. You could see him thinking ‘hey, I’m good at something’.”
Julie is a registered nurse and has worked in mental health with teens and children for well over a decade. And at Sparkles & Unicorns, this is the “heart work” she loves.
“It is the most rewarding work. We have autistic children, some with anger issues and others with anxiety or depression issues. Horses are a beautiful medium to work with these children. They are just incredible to watch,” she says.
“They hear you coming, they see a child coming, and they know what your heartbeat is saying. When times get tough, I see the smiles on these kids, and I am so damned proud of the work we do here.” Julie runs very much on instinct, with the matching of children and horses down to her intuition on which matches will work best.
They see you coming, they see a child coming, and they know what your heartbeat is saying. When times get tough, I see the smiles on these kids, and I am so damned proud of the work we do here.
“For example, a nervous wee one won’t be matched with a sensitive horse. Yes, I guess I do the matchmaking, and then sit back and watch them work. It never gets old or stops amazing me.”
Volunteers are critical to the daily running of the business, with Julie’s team helping with the care and exercise of the horses on the property.
“I couldn’t do it without them. They turn up day after day, just to be around the horses. Just like I used to.”
Julie was born in nearby Greerton to parents who were not animal people, but they did have Fluffy the Persian cat.
“It seems amazing to think that,” she laughs.
“I was born with a passion for horses. And in the days when times were safer, from about age six I used to walk to my aunt’s house. She had a horse and I used to spend as much time as I could just watching the horse, dreaming about one of my own.”
At age 12, Julie volunteered at the not-for-profit organisation Riding for the Disabled, back when volunteers were allowed to bring a horse home for the holidays. She still recalls Gypsy, a huge horse, which she kept at Pony Club grounds.
Finally, after slogging through a paper run for years, 14-year-old Julie was able to buy her own horse. Her aunty took her to Waihi where she bought Snow.
“I was 14 and he was 14. Amazing to think of it now. I still had nowhere to keep him though so I door-knocked some neighbours.”
One of the couples whose door she knocked on were kiwifruit-growers Dave and Jane Church. Julie exchanged work in the kiwifruit orchard for grazing for Snow.
The Churchs have remained friends and supporters since then. And in one of those ‘meant to be’ moments of natural symmetry, Julie’s current property is where she kept that very first horse, Snow.
The idea for Sparkles & Unicorns came about when Julie was in Bali with her two young boys, and unsure where life might take her next. She loved nursing in mental health, but it was taking a toll on her.
“I said to my boys, what else could I do that combines my two passions — children and horses? And suddenly I knew.”
Sitting at the kitchen table with her hands wrapped around a cup of tea, Julie exclaims “Ooh, goosebumps!” as she recalls the story.
“And I also knew exactly what to call it. There was a Balinese man who was making signs sitting nearby, and I got him to make the sign right there and then. That sign is in my barn now.”
The barn is filled with dress-ups, saddles made into seats, and unicorns of all shape and sizes.
Phoenix sits proudly at the top of the staff board with 20 in the ‘Years’ column. Miniatures Minty and Fefe feature too, along with Yana, Chilli and others.
The newest arrivals are Shetland ponies Hugo and Frodo who Julie picked up north of Auckland following the sad passing of their devoted owner.
Julie looks down, burying her head in her hands sheepishly, when asked how many horses are on her Trade Me watchlist.
“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I’m supposed to be downsizing,” she says, as one of the volunteers grins in the background, shaking her head.
“I’m a hoarder. A hoarder of horses. It’s the best kind of addiction.”
And when the costs and pressures get a little much, Julie has a simple solution.
“I love just burying my nose in a horse and just smelling it, feeling it, and staying still there for a while. It is pure love. There is nothing else like it.”
Julie also keeps in mind the catchphrase they have come up with for Sparkles & Unicorns, ‘Beyond your dreams… within your reach’.
