Hoofers : Dancing Through San Juan

Out of an unlocked stable gate--and seemingly out of the past --four horses raced through the streets of San Juan Capistrano Wednesday morning, briefly disrupting the horseless-carriage traffic before they were corralled.

“I looked up and here were these four horses--with no riders,” said Jeanette Herrick, who works in a real estate office with lots of windows near the intersection of the town’s main street, Camino Capistrano, and Del Obispo Street.

“They were coming down Camino Capistrano from up near the mission--and I mean they weren’t just galloping. They were at a dead run.”

Cars were stopping everywhere, she said, and she noticed with horror that the traffic light at Del Obispo was red as the animals raced toward the intersection.

“Then, just like magic, it changed to green for them, and they tore right on through,” Herrick said. “A couple of minutes later, they were coming back, and the light was against them this time, too.”

But again, at the last moment, it turned green.

Sparks From Their Hooves

Nostrils flaring and manes whipping, the quartet circled through a shopping center near the intersection, then took off westward on Del Obispo and crossed the bridge over Trabuco Creek with sparks flying from their hooves.

On the other side, they turned left onto residential Alipaz Street, and it was there, several blocks down, that the people from Sycamore Trails Stables, situated about a mile away on Trabuco Creek not far from the old Mission San Juan Capistrano, caught up with them.

“There was a sheriff’s car that had been following them,” said Katie Buescher, a trainer at the stable. “I guess the officers didn’t really know what to do, and one of them just said to us, ‘Boy, are we glad to see you.’ ”

The horses, including one almost full-grown foal, were loaded on a trailer and taken home.

“I guess one of them just managed somehow to get a gate open,” Buescher said. “Anyway, they sure had a ball for a while. They didn’t want to go home.”