The Littlest Horse Thieves

The Littlest Horse Thieves (1976)

Collecting Coal for the Sandman would be the pits without the ponies.  It is the early part of the 20th century in Yorkshire England and everything is fine and dandy with the system of the Pit Ponies helping to mine the coal for the miners.  That is until the owner decides to go all high tech (for back then that is).  Machines are now in. Ponies are now out.

Instead of starting a new petting zoo with the Ponies, the manager of the mine, Richard Sandman, decides he will sprinkle some permanent dreams for the horses.

This doesn’t sit too well for the two adolescent coal mining volunteers, Luke and Richard Armstrong. Their connection to the mine runs deeper then their friendship with the Ponies. Their father died in the mine and their step dad now currently works in the mine ( as does most of the town).

They can’t bear to see these cute little ponies, especially their friend Flash,  lay down and die after years of hard work. So the two boys along with Mr. Sandman’s daughter Violet set out to rescue the Ponies, who instead rescue them in the end.  To reveal what that actually entails would involve actually watching the picture to find out.

The ‘Littest Thieves’ is a nice look at a close knit english minding community at the turn of the century.  The pleasant characters, conflict, suspense, and threat of death keep this Disney flick a deceit family film to add to your family library. It is not my favorite Disney film, (maybe because of the more serious English tone of the picture) but it's certainly worth a trip down the ancient elevator to look at.