Joep Bartels started as an event rider and is a trained psychologist. He worked as a freelance journalist and started his own equestrian magazine back in the seventies. He started the equestrian company BCM in 1974 and left this company in 1997 to concentrate on Academy Bartels. He is now a professor at the agricultural university in s’Hertogenbosch and advisor of the board of the Dutch Equestrian Federation. He gives various lessons at Academy Bartels on sport psychology and training systems.