An animal charity in north Cumbria is celebrating after two stolen ponies were found safe and sound by police in the west Midlands. 

The two cobs were stolen from Oak Tree Animals' Charity site earlier this week, which prompted the organisation to put out a call on social media for people to share their post to help locate them. 

It was shared 10,000 times by people across the country in places such as the west Midlands, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, and north Yorkshire.

Caroline Yon, head of animal welfare at Oak Tree, said: "Once we realised the ponies were not just missing but had been stolen, the team were utterly heartbroken.

"Our strategy was to use the power of social media to get their photos out as far and wide as possible in the hopes someone would see them. This really paid off with thousands of shares within the first couple of hours."

Three hours after Oak Tree had shared their initial post on Facebook, they received a call from the West Midlands Traffic Police to let them know that they had found them. 

The police had discovered the ponies in an unrelated traffic stop. 

The news was welcomed by supporters on Facebook with more than 400 shares and 1,700 reactions.

Mrs Yon said: "I cannot express how delighted and relieved everyone was. The ponies have dealt with their unexpected journey really well and are settled back in with no adverse effects. 

"On behalf of the charity, I would like to extend a massive thank you to everyone who shared the post, our neighbours for their offers of assistance, the West Midlands police, Cumbria police and the West Midlands Equine community who offered our ponies a safe space until we could drive down to recover them. 

"Without such fantastic support it is unlikely we would have got them safely home."