Should I loan out sons pony and borrow a LR?

[MagicMelon]

My sons pony is fab, she's a little Dartmoor - young but been going on the lead rein well for the past year with him doing usual PC type fun things. I wouldnt sell her as she's a decent little pony who I believe will do him very well, my only concern just now is actually letting him off the lead rein. I watched some kids doing PC games yesterday, and I could see how much easier it would be for him to start going off lead on one of the old, been there done everything ponies. His pony is not one of them. She is forward going on the lead rein but great to jump etc. and has been ridden by an older rider off lead a few times being foot perfect. She is on the forward going side (not badly but not exactly a plod), Weirdly she's actually better / steadier off-lead, but I just dont know if I'll ever be brave enough to unclip him on her until he perhaps has experience himself of riding off-lead.

My son is 5 so Im in no tearing hurry for him to be off lead by any means, but I also see other kids his age bombing about on their little shetlands and feel he might start wanting to do that. So should I loan her out to someone whose kid is off-lead, they can go off and have some fun with her and she'll be getting more off-lead experience. And then see if I can find a very very trustworthy old pony to take on loan for the next few months to try him off-lead?

I'm gutted as we lost my veteran pony 18 months ago and I would have trusted him down to the ground I hate loaning out but I dont have the space to keep her AND loan another really.

 

[Lucyad]

We did that - had a very whizzy lead rein pony, put him on loan, and got an ancient schoolmistress on loan to start off leadrein. Then whizzy pony loaners wanted to keep him a while longer, so we got their daughter's first ridden, 1 step up from ancient schoolmistress who we passed on to another loan home (as daughter quickly wanted to progress), then eventually we got whizzy pony back.

Still have whizzy pony as he is ours (others were all loans) but he is out on loan. And current 13.2 pony.