Silver Candidate Membership

Free BHS membership for candidates registering for a Stage 1 Assessment

The BHS is continually looking at ways to support and grow the equestrian sector and serve individual equestrians from grass roots activities through to professional level accomplishments.
We have listened to feedback from candidates, approved centres, colleges, employers, and other industry professionals who are looking for ways to encourage more people to consider equine related careers and begin their journey into our professional pathways programmes.

We are delighted to introduce a new initiative which will demonstrate this by removing the existing requirement for all Stage 1 Care and Stage 1 Ride candidates to purchase BHS Gold membership.

Instead, candidates will be eligible for a free of charge ‘BHS Silver Candidate Membership’ at the point of booking their first Stage 1 assessment, subject to registering this with the BHS. A riding school or college can apply for this on behalf of the candidate.

If you’re at least 13 years old and ready to register for your Stage 1 assessment, then please speak to your college or BHS Approved Riding School about registering for BHS Silver Candidate membership.

The free of charge BHS Silver Candidate Membership will be valid for 12 months from the date you register and, as part of this package, you will receive regular e-news to keep up to date with key equestrian issues and events in your area, a free digital subscription to British Horse magazine and free and discounted tickets to leading equestrian events throughout the year.

We will continue to review the impact of the free membership and listen to the views of participants and industry professionals. We will communicate further updates to let you know if this will be closed at an appropriate future date. Therefore, at this time, we cannot guarantee that if a BHS Student does not complete their Stage 1 within 12 months that we would be able to extend their free of charge BHS Silver Candidate Membership for a further 12 months.

This applies in the UK and Republic of Ireland only. We still require International Students to be International Full or International-E Members.

Please refer to our terms and conditions here and speak to your college or BHS Approved Riding School if you would like further information or want to register. We’d be delighted to welcome you!