The little pony in this photo came to live with Curtis Sanders, a farmer's son, just for the summer. Apparently it was the practice of the Roanoke Coal Company (Woodford County) to take the ponies out of the mine when the mine was closed for the summer. They had left them with the children of the town for the summer in past years, but had found that the ponies were abused by the children, and in 1937 they decided to leave the ponies on farms.
I'm not sure which part makes me sadder, that the ponies had to live in the mines in the winter or that the children abused them when they had been released for their summer vacations.