Get out of the way!
A runaway carriage horse sped through Central Park without its driver Sunday evening, sending panicked parkgoers caught on shocking video scrambling – even jumping over wire fences and into the park’s greenery.
The wild horse, which was pulling a white carriage with a purple interior, trotted a half-mile from Tavern on the Green to The Dairy at a high speed at around 6 p.m., terrifying videos posted to social media and shared by animal advocacy group NYCLASS show.
“I was there with my friend walking on the sidewalk and almost got trampled by the poor horse. It was so terrifying,” one eyewitness, named Hayley, said in a statement to NYCLASS shared with The Post. “My friend and I were walking on the sidewalk to the right of the Central Park Loop … when I heard lots of screams & hooves.
Hayley said they turned around and saw the horse charging at them as the carriage dangled in the distance.
“We had a split second to move out of the way … over the wire fence between the sidewalk and trees when the horse ran past us,” she added.
A crowd of cyclists quickly followed the speeding horse to warn pedestrians on the loop, the witness added.
“About a minute later, we saw a pedicab pull up with someone in the backseat, who was presumably the driver, as many people were yelling and giving him instructions on which direction the horse went,” she said.
Christina Hansen, the union rep for carriage horses, told The Post there were no injuries or property damage reported, and there’s currently “no indication” the horse’s driver was negligent.
It appears, instead, the horse’s bridle came off and, before it could be reattached, the horse fled.
The horse was not secured to a hitching post at the time, Hansen said, because there wasn’t one nearby.
During the fracas, carriage drivers’ “internal communications” led one driver near Sixth Avenue, whose horse was securely tethered, to the runaway animal. That driver was able to snatch the horse by its headgear and secure it.
Hansen said the union is conducting an internal investigation and will continue educating drivers in proper securing methods — while calling on the city to install more hitching posts for drivers to safely “park” the animals.
The last time a horse was loose in Central Park was in 2014, Hansen said, when Pumpkin got his bridle stuck in another carriage and ultimately hit a taxi.
Hayley, meanwhile, said she’ll keep a more watchful eye on her surroundings the next time she opts for a stroll in Central Park.
“I cannot imagine what would have happened had we not heard the horse … and with so many pedestrians and runners with headphones in or without as much warning, I have no idea if or how no one got severely injured or killed,” she said.
“I am always going on runs and love being in Central Park, and this was one of the most terrifying experiences and has definitely made me more wary and scared.”
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