Former pit pony Tony dies at 40

One of Britain’s last surviving pit ponies has died of old age, the animal shelter which cared for him in retirement said.

Tony lived to the grand age of 40, having had a tough start to life working below ground at the Ellington Pit in Northumberland.

When his work there finished in 1994, he was sent to the Newcastle Cat and Dog Shelter, where he was popular with local schoolchildren – many of whom in later years knew little of the once-proud mining industry.

Tony worked at Ellington with three other ponies – Pike, who also went to the shelter, and Sparky and Carl who went to live at the National Coal Mining Museum for England in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

Ellington was the last English pit to use ponies, and Tony outlived his former colleagues, though others from Welsh mines may still survive.

At the start of the 20th century more than 70,000 pit ponies were used in Britain’s coal mines, but mechanisation brought that figure down to just 20 by the 1990s.

They spent their lives underground, even being stabled there, apart from the colliery’s annual two-week summer break when they were allowed out into the sunshine.

Leyla Rutter, chief executive officer of Newcastle Cat and Dog Shelter, said: “It is with great sadness that Newcastle Dog and Cat Shelter announce the death of Tony the pony.