BHS Stage 3

My Daughter took her BHS Stage 3 last week at Usk College in Gwent. The BHS Stage 3 has changed quite a bit since I did mine. There is no written paper, no ride and lead and no riding in a double bridle. The exam is split into two parts the Horse Knowledge and Care and the Riding.  No longer do candidates receive their results on the day but have to wait 7 to 10 days for them to arrive in the post. Although you will find out if you have failed the riding on the day if you don’t get through each section. After the flat section any candidates that the examiners feel are not competent enough to jump will be stopped from going any further and therefore will have failed the riding same with the show jumping. If you manage to get through to the cross country then you can only fail on the cross country as you will have passed the previous sections. Amelia rode all three sections and has received a pass certificate for her riding. The Care section consists of theory, practical, practical theory and lungeing. Amelia felt that the practical theory did not go well and neither did the lungeing. She had previously lunged the horse she had on the day and she knew it was particularly lazy, unfortunately on the day it had probably been lunged before her turn and it was a very hot day and the horse didn’t want to go at all. Needless to say she failed the care on the lungeing the practical theory was fine but thats the way it goes. BHS exams can be very frustrating sometimes as your fate can often depend on the horses you are given on the day.  I personally think the system works quite well and people do have to reach a standard, although I think there are one or two who might not have passed if luck wasn’t on their side with the horses they were given. I took my stage three in Chiverton in Cornwall with Emma Davies. We travelled down the day before and visited the centre only to find they were practicing the jumping with their horses, all of them were stopping and we nearly left for home. The horses were dreadful to jump and I actually fell off,  in fact two people rode the horse I had for the show jumping and both of us fell off. I also had a horse to lunge that was very lazy and the minute in got 1 inch out of reach it slowed down even more, luckily for me the other candidate luneging was making a right mess of it and the examiner spent most of her time watching her and I don’t think she noticed me too much. Amelia is going to resit the care section of the exam at the end of the month. Unfortunately she will have to do the whole care section again so there is always the risk she could fail on something she has already passed.

Posted on Sunday, July 5th, 2009 at 1:41 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.