Pony Club

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What age did your little ones start Pony Club?

Daughter is 3, but keen. She won't be able to go to mini camp this year as I'm away for work so I wondered if I should just wait until she's 4 next year (and hopefully we're a lot closer to normality!).

Mine started back end of last year just before she turned 4 and improved with just an hour of tuition now she's 4.5 she's a lot more consistent and getting more out of it.

Mine started at 3 basically for camp, now she is 5 and on her third camp, this year she has been to lots more rallys. I think next year would be fine

Ours would take them from the school year they turned 4 for the 'tots' ride /lead rein rally classes - IMO at that age it massively varied in terms of what they got from it and it wasn't purely age related but more down to personality, I had 3 go through the system and eldest was always super keen and confident and loved every second, middle one spent more time sat in the middle of the school crying or clinging to my legs refusing to get on than actually riding - he was perfectly confident on his pony at home but the pressure of being at PC with the other children seemed to melt his brain, one was OK, said she liked it etc., but struggled with the teaching/organised fun element, she didn't always listen to instructions very well so would tend not to grasp the games and things they were meant to be doing and had to be constantly chivvied - that seemed pretty par for the course based on what I saw from the other children, the tots ride was always pretty chaotic I have to say!

I think you know your child best, there is plenty of time for PC so if you'd rather give it a miss or think she won't really be ready yet then there's no harm waiting a year (I always thought half the pleasure was in the anticipation anyway!).

We take them from 4 - just too young otherwise to manage an hour of teaching no matter how much fun we make it.

Age four onwards and usually private one to one lessons. However I would suggest it would naturally be dependent on physicality as much as infant maturity for very young riders. My child also enjoys riding camels and elephants as much as horses.

My DD was 7. Her riding school take from 5 but say 7 is better as they can understand what they need to do more easily.

Mine found an hour lesson too much when they were 4 - especially in the winter, as they'd just get cold and fed up. Every young rider is different, but we found just hacking out and doing handy pony at home, with the occasional local show for lead rein or novelty classes was best, until they were 5 or 6.

If your local pony club have lots of other activities then younger than 5 would work, but for just riding - I'd wait.
My youngest was probably 4 when he joined (as the other 2 were there ) and he struggled a bit xx