“I just looked out the window to see how bad it was coming down still and I see two ponies,” Staten Island resident Robert Stasio told the New York Post, “I thought I was imagining things!”
Nope. Two miniature ponies apparently escaped from a stable on Staten Island and took advantage of their freedom to frolic in the snowy (slushy) streets. Stasio told reporters that he hopped in his truck to tail them as they pranced along Richmond Avenue to Hylan Boulevard. Stasio got out of his vehicle and started racing after the ponies on foot, when he crossed paths with two police officers who helped round up the equine fugitives. Stasio described the chase to Gothamist:
They [the cops] didn’t have a rope. Another fella came out the car, he had some kind of strap. The ponies were pulling me, they were dragging me in the snow, and then eventually I got them to stop and the guy came and put the rope around their neck and tied one to the pole and then we got the other one.
Mayor Bill de Blasio confirmed that both of the ponies “are safe and in great shape” after being returned home, which is a relief.
