They escaped in a flurry.
Two hirsute ponies managed to flee a private barn on Staten Island’s South Shore in the midst of a blustery morning snowstorm on Tuesday.
The ponies were photographed trotting down Preston Avenue in the Eltingville neighborhood in the morning hours.
A quick-thinking, off-duty New York Police Department officer who noticed the small horses on the loose corralled them and tied the pair to a lamp post, according to Terence A. Monahan, NYPD chief of Patrol Services.
“They were waking down Hylan Boulevard,” said Monahan, chuckling his way through a briefing during a noon news conference on the winter storm. “The officer who spotted them — two little tiny ponies — actually had a toe strap in his truck.”
It is not immediately clear how the ponies escaped, but police received a call reporting their getaway at 9:57 a.m., according to a police spokesman.
Harry J. Wedin, NYPD chief of the Special Operations Division, tweeted at 11:22 a.m. that the ponies had been returned to their home on Wakefield Road, thanks to responding officers from the 123 Precinct and NYPD Emergency Service Unit.
The responding officers knew the owners of the small horses, according to the police spokesman.
No police — or ponies — were harmed during the incident.
“They’re safe. They’re in great shape,” Monahan said.
