These are X-more ponies, but this is not X-more, it's Lancashire, and the ponies are on the move again. Some conservationists call them the flying squad. This is all part of an ingenious new scheme that tackles two problems. The first is that X-more ponies are in danger of dying out. The other is that round here there are some rare plants that are also under threat. Now they come up with a clever idea that solves both of these problems at the same time. X-more ponies were the first horses in Britain. They've been here for 130,000 years, an incredibly long time. But 50 years ago, there were only 50 ponies left, and they might have died out altogether. The only reason there are any left at all is because of X-more enthusiasts keeping the breed alive. Come and say hello. Family have had ponies in Silverdale in Lancashire for seven years. They've been sotted with the animals. Once you form a relationship with them, they get into your blood. They work as a team, and I feel privileged to sort of be accepted as an almost honorary ex-more. I'm almost out of her. They treat us with respect. They're just totally brilliant ponies. They're so hardy. They make brilliant riding ponies, sure-footed, beautiful and really friendly. The other part of the X-sore is a stretch of limestone pavement near Morken Bay. This is a very special but fragile landscape. The soil between the rocks when you can find it is thin and alkaline. Still, you get mosses and violets growing here. But there's a prickly problem. We're surrounded by thorny plants like brambles, like thornsgrub. They're very aggressive. They're swamping this this fantastic area. They're shading out all the plants that we want to see here. The answer was obvious. These ponies eat thistles and brambles for breakfast, lunch and dinner. X-more's a particularly good at conservation grazing because they have tough mouths. So they can eat the rough stuff that other animals don't. Cheven cattle can do the same job, but they don't do it quite as well. And putting the ponies on the limestone pavement has worked wonders. We're getting all the mosses, all the plants coming back in this wild strawberry here. There's a bit of violet down there. And that's the other really exciting thing. With the violets come the rare butterflies, the high brown fertility. The high brown fertility is a nationally rare butterfly. It's undergone a huge decline over the last few decades. The ponies are a great success and they're the native bonus here in that they're making pathways through the bracken areas on the site, creating good habitat for the butterflies there. The result of it is, you look down here, whether ponies have made a pathway through, the fertility butterflies have gone flamethrough, they've laid their eggs next to these little patches of the violets. Next spring the caterpillars will be eating those and will get another generation of the high brown fertility or due to the ponies. And the ponies are working their wonders elsewhere. Alan Ferguson from the National Trust is recreating a traditional grassland glade in the nearby wood. Without their grazing, without their browsing, nipping back of the shrubbersome and tree sackling, trying to go into this grassland, we would lose it. I've actually seen them chew back, black thorn brushes, nick the black thorn brush, you actually chew it in it and I was hoping it was interesting to see you. And they don't like eating things like feathers, they don't eat many flowers. So they actually do eat the things we want to eat and not the things that we don't want to eat. It's obviously being a success here, but do you think these ponies could be used elsewhere or national trust properties? Definitely. Ex-more ponies are super for it. They're an old breed, people like to see them, they just look super with a fringe of, a fringe of mane coming across their eyes. You fall in the love of the family? Definitely. Super for animals. Well, ex-more ponies have a new purpose, they have a future. The demand for these ponies, on different conservation sites throughout the country really, and it's a growing demand, and that's what's needed, the ponies to be bred. It's extremely exciting to think that ponies are going to be going into the next millennium, because we've got a job for the misconservation graces. And there's more information about it.