Qs about freelance grooms

[SeaTheStars]

is it better to register with British Grooms Assoc or BHS or both, and do you have to have stage 3 to do so?

or would/have you used an unregistered groom?

thanks in advance

I would have thought an accreditation to either of those would stand you in good stead. Do you mean general horse/stable duties or turn-out to a high-standard i.e County or similar?

Personally I think lots of experience/good refs are the way to go.

All of the freelance grooms I know aren't registered with either. However, one just gets her jobs locally by word of mouth and has been doing it for about 20 years. The others all started work as general shovellers in one particular top showing yard and have gone on to make their own way in the world on the back of this experience. (This yard teaches the old fashioned method of hard work and horsemanship .) All of the other grooms I know are working in yards which send them on BHS courses.

you need your stage 3 care to register with the british grooms assoc as a groom.

its a new organisation/innitiative. i think atm it isnt really recognised much by the industry so is not particularly useful - that may change though. if you are "known" locally you prob dont need to register at all as you'll get work by word of mouth. If you are not known, having some BHS qualifications will undoubtably help you, as will any industry experience.

Natural horsemanship experience is now becoming a selling point for grooms as well as this is very fashionable at the moment.

thanks everyone, I mean v humble duties of course seem to be getting more of that sort of work and it makes a change from naughty dogs (LOVE my naughty dogs tho)

didn't realise the grooms assoc. thing was so new, am sure have been seeing the posters around for quite a while (couple of years at least, suppose that is not very long really)

all roads in life seem to point that stage 3 don't they!

(have changed back to normal name)

Go on, do the stage 3, you know you want to. you only need the care element to register as a groom but the riding bit is really fun.........

maybe will give it some thought in summer - when there are more spare £££ than now

obviously am scared of failing tho

I spent absolutely bloody AGES revising worming for my stage 3. I knew all about nematodes etc and all the fancy chemical names for the active ingredients in wormers plus could describe 2 different worming regimes using brand name products etc.

In the exam I was asked to name one thing to think about in relation to worming. I said "don't feed hard-feed off the floor of the stable, always use a bucket to reduce the likelyhood of re-ingestion of worms".

I passed. Was GUTTED at how much work I'd put into revising worming! Possibly should have spent this time learning how to put a XC surcingle on because I had to fit one and I'd never even SEEN one before other than on the front of horse and hound

"don't feed hard-feed off the floor of the stable, always use a bucket to reduce the likelyhood of re-ingestion of worms".

I wonder if anyone has told my horse this. The first thing he does when I give him his dinner is kick the bucket over and spread it across the floor. Nothing better than conditioning cubes laced with poo!

haha!

I was a freelance groom a few years back. I started just doing clipping, mucking out, holiday cover etc, but within a month i was being paid to exercise peoples horses, then school, then break, then yearling prep. I loved it.

I had BHS membership but was not registered with any of the organisations. Have only got my BHS stage 1 too.

I didn't realise you were STS Mitchy