There have been several versions of Black Beauty produced for the cinema and for television. This DVD is the 1971 British production.

 

Beauty goes from a loving, happy family and life on an English farm with a little boy who loves him, to the cruel hands of the local land baron. Then he's stolen by Gypsy stereotypes, shipped across the continent, sold to a circus, and gifted to a gentleman who in turn gives the horse to his daughter. The daughter presents Beauty to her boyfriend, a soldier headed for India.

 

When the young man is killed in battle, Beauty is shipped back to England, where he goes to work in a coal mine. Instead of the people in the story being the thread woven through the horse's life, in this version it is just the opposite. While a horse called Ginger is mentioned in passing, the colorful equine characters in Beauty's orbit - most notably, Merrylegs - are all excised.