After a history that stretches back to the ice age, the ponies are under threat. In the Fifties there were 30,000 on the moor; now that figure has sunk to approximately 1,000.

Each is owned by a farmer who, every year between September and October in an age-old ritual known as a “drift”, sweeps the moor for ponies for counting and health checks, ready to be either returned to rough grazing or sold at market.

But as things stand, there is little financial incentive to keep them. Demand for riding ponies has dived as children reach for iPads over reins and disposable incomes and space tighten. Subsidies are far better for keeping cattle and sheep than pony and a ban on live exports to Europe shut down another potential revenue steam.

At the few annual pony sales that are held, many ponies go unsold and end up with the knackerman, where they are shot and fed to lions at local zoos. Roughly 400 of the 750 foals born annually on Dartmoor are destroyed.

A market in pony meat, say its advocates, will ensure ponies are kept for at least three years before going to the butcher, at which point they’re more likely to be bought for riding. The ponies also maintain local ecosystems and wildlife by eating the gorse and bracken that would otherwise carpet the moors, say supporters.