Is the Pony Club at the RS?
There is often a waiting list - I suggest you add your daughter's name to the list. And actually ask why she isnt yet ready?
Pony Club meetings often include a group class.
At some schools children are not allowed to join a group lesson until they can canter.
More important than the Pony Club is to understand what your daughter is doing in her lessons and why?
Is it a large riding centre with group lessons?
Does she have a group lesson? Or private?
Not everyone canters in their first six months of riding. And those who canter soon dont always end up the best at it.
Where children are taught from the start in groups, they are moved up a class when they achieve a particular skill. Trotting on her own often qualifies for promotion so that is good.
But a lot of the preparation for canter is done in trot. Most RSs in the UK teach canter from trot. It isnt ideal because it requires certain skiils. When one is asking a horse to canter, first one must have an active trot. Then one must sit to this trot. And most RS ponies are taught to canter from a corner, so the learner must sit to an active trot at a corner of the school which is harder than doing it on the straight.
I go to a school where canter is taught from walk or on the lunge. So this is not always the situation.
But in most UK schools, many early lessons will be spent riding without stirrups, riding trot without stirrups and finally sitting to the trot with stirrups, (which oddly can be more difficult).
They will also be spent practising riding with good balance round corners and on a circle.
I hope this is helpful, but please do have a chat with the school. Not to com[plain, but to understand their system and what is going on.
