Police Turn Cowpokes as Horses Break Out of Corral

Using a rope and their bare hands, police officers wrangled five runaway horses galloping loose on the streets of Pacoima before dawn Tuesday.

After a chase lasting nearly an hour, the police finally nabbed their beasts.

The animals simply tuckered out around 4 a.m. near the intersection of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Osborne Street and surrendered peacefully, said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Ken Roth.

“It’s all in a day’s work,” Roth said. “I think we’re going to get a new name: the Horse Patrol.”

The horses, all Arabian mixes, may have escaped through an open gate at their owner’s corral.

“They don’t know how they got out,” said Lt. Lisa Goodman, who manages the East Valley city animal shelter. “All they can guess is that someone left the gate open.”

The horse-wrangling caper began about 3 a.m., when the horses trotted by the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division on Osborne Street. Five officers, using police cars and a helicopter, attempted to corral the horses as they headed east on Osborne, but the horses resisted capture.

One was finally caught near the intersection of Osborne Street and Glenoaks Boulevard, where it was secured with a makeshift noose made out of a garden hose.

After the other horses were chased to Laurel Canyon Boulevard, officers grabbed them by their necks and hitched them with rope to a supermarket rail post.

The animals were taken to city animal shelters in North Hollywood and Chatsworth and then picked up by their owners.

“They were a little nicked up. It looks like they’ve been through the mill,” said Lt. Richard Felosky, who manages the Chatsworth shelter.