Unfortunately this just happened at a local show this weekend with worst possible outcome. Absolutely gut wrenching situation.
When I was a kid there used to be local very unrecognized 
shows. One show was held in a lot that had a ring and extra space for the “outside hunter course” that we used to see. One year they set up the course so that the final line was aiming right towards the driveway between all the parked trailers. No fence or gate.
Predictably, someone got dumped on that line and the horse took off. It ran down that drive with people popping out trying to wave him to a stop and popping back in when it was obvious he wasnt stopping. Kind of comical in a scary way! The horse kept going onto a main road but happily turned onto another street to run amok in suburbia.
This was well before cell phones, so there were people driving and talking to people walking and pointing out the torn up lawns in an effort to track him. He did some unique landscape design before they finally found him, but happily he and everyone appeared uninjured.
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I’m reminded of the day my big Shire gelding decided to get out. BIG Draft horse who tips the scale at close to a ton, new to the property, and very on edge. My mom (to be fair not at the time physically able to chase down such a horse) called 911 first, then called me at work.
I made it home from work in less than the 12 minutes it took for me to get to that office. A lot less, and nearly blew my transmission throwing my truck into park as it was still moving. Why?
Because here was 17.2 hands of tightly coiled Shire in the barnyard surrounded by the town’s two constables and several state troopers, I think three. None of whom really wanted to get much closer to him, all of whom had enough sense to not really push him… You know that sort of stance a horse gets when they are about to completely totally lose it? Tight lips and eyes, tight belly, ears all over the place, all four feet ready, neck and head as high as they can get? I think Buddy was as happy to see me as the cops were!
My nightmare is the next door winery, I have a major state road as well, but all those guy wires for the grapes, high tension nearly invisible, ugh.
My handsome boy, pic below, liked to drop a shoulder out from under me after seeing something like a road grate, off to one side and leaving me to trudge home. He would always run home.
Once he dumped me as we rounded the corner at the top of the road at the farm, breaking my finger as I tried to hold onto his reins seated on the ground, because we had come upon an unusual and out of place tent, set up for a child’s birthday party. We had just left the 4 year-olds and their parents jammed in the aisle way of the barn, and cantered up the hill to use the upper ring. He galloped back down the hill and raced towards the barn. It had a side entrance where nearly 30 kids and their parents were. And two end entrances. I watched in horror as he barreled towards the side entrance, certain he would trample tots and their parents alike, and watched him come to an impressive sliding stop in front of the side door, shake his head, turn and trot hugely down the length of the barn and around the end.
I got breathlessly to the barn to find him standing where he should be crosstied, head down to the floor so the tiniest of the children could pet him, many underneath him reaching up to pet him, all cexclaiming and cooing about the “wild stallion” and him looking like an angel eating forbidden carrots, and not moving a foot, his feet planted, so he wouldn’t step on any one. The weasel was not allowed treats because he would pin his ears and take your face and hands off lunging at you to get a treat if he thought you had one. But here he was, ears forward, taking tiny delicate nibbles from tiny fingers. The rat fink. He knew very well how to be a gentleman if he wanted to. And here was me, spending hundreds of dollars on remedial behavior clinics.
Turned out to be a babysitter for kids. If they rode him, tiny little trots and jogs, they could put a step stool up to brush him and he wouldn’t move a foot, and would lower his head so they could reach him.
Last time I rode him he ducked outfrom under me because he saw a crow rise up in a far field (must mean danger, so why not, Im sure he thought). I landed on my back. Broken ribs and pneumothorax. He ran for the barn and was standing pleasantly in the cross ties when I got there. The little dickens.!
Today he is still a challenging ride, objects if you ask incorrectly. But is showing second level dressage. FB_IMG_1629431428376|500x500
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I believe you!
We used to say ours were headed for town to get ice cream cones.
Shortly after we got our dog, he slipped out the door during a delivery transaction. And was gone. A short while later a cop rolls up and has our dog in the back seat of the patrol car (owner data tied to tag #). Doggo was trotting down the sidewalk a few blocks away on a super busy street. He was going to the liquor store where they hand out Slim Jims to dogs. I guess he decided to make a beer run without us.
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Mine run straight to the hay barn
Mu aunt had an old barrel racer that I rode as a young teen. In retrospect, that horse was dangerous, but whatever. I took her out on a long trail ride one day. She decided to dump me on the trail an snapped the reins when I tried to hang on to her. Took off and left me there.
Turns out she followed the trail back to the road and trotted approx. 3 miles down the middle of the road followed by several cars. She went all the way home, then stood in the spot where we normally removed her saddle. No one knew where I was. I had eventually walked back to the road and caught a ride with someone driving by, worried that the horse may have been hurt somewhere along the way.
After that I was instructed to let someone know where I was going when riding out alone.
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One time when one of my horses didn’t make a bee-line for the road:
Many years ago, I was hacking one of my mares out in the cross country fields. The fields adjoined the indoor arena. We were a couple miles from the barn.
There was a small country road along one side of the property, and a pick-up came by pulling a flatbed trailer with, apparently, a lot of heavy steel in it. He hit a bump, and the steel in the bed made an awful noise. It scared me, so I wasn’t surprised it scared my mare.
She was quite a feisty horse (16.3 with me at 5’3") and very much a handful. She loved life and playing and had a tendency to buck and play right after she shied or panicked. And she could buck. Not the nice straight kind, but the big twist all through the back kind.
She heard the noise and off she went at full gallop in the direction of the barn. She was super athletic (scopiest jump I ever sat, saved my butt more than once) and could throw in these huge bucks at the same time. I sat about four of them, but the fifth one got me, and I went flying off over her butt which proceeded to disappear over the next hill, bucking all the way.
I struggled to my feet, yelled in the direction of the now vanished horse “Thanks so much for checking that I was OK.” After a long while of trudging, I heard my name being called, and up over the hill came a couple of friends with mare in tow, wondering if they were going to find me alive. I asked for a leg up, turned her away from the barn (you know, just to remind her that we only go home when I say we go home) and returned at a more sedate pace.
Apparently, a beginner lesson was going on in the indoor with the side door open. Mare went flying in, still playing and bucking, and proceeded to run around the outside for about 5 minutes. The instructor had immediately told the poor beginners to come into the middle of the ring and stand.
Ever after, during the winter, if I had to ride in the indoor at the same time as a lesson, any of those kids who were there that day gave my girl a wide berth. She was registered as dark bay/brown, but in the winter, she looked almost black. I heard one kid say to another “Watch out for that big black horse. It’s really scary.”
Another one I so loved and miss so much. 
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The crazy ones are the ones we love the most.
First horse, liver chestnut 17 hand OTTB. O would ride out alone to the water company property where we would gallop up and down the hills over stone walls to get to hay fields. 10 miles along state roads to get to the water company property.
The sight of the hay fields were more than she could resist, and cantering out into them would prompt bucks. Her bucks, at a gallop, were near cartwheels, with her standing on her front legs and her back legs above our heads. I remember diving for the ground and thinking “tuck your head and roll or you’ll break your neck.” I almost did, with a sore neck for several weeks, which I kept secret. Was I worried she would run the 12 miles home? Yes and no. She was too tempted by the grass, and stopped soon to eat, but she was a mare kept her butt facing me as I approached her and would double barrel me. If I got close. After catching her, which I seemed to eventually do, getting on her required a stone wall. I could have died. Literally died, but rode out there all the time. Loved that mare. Hunted her, and showed her jumpers. Took her next owner to yhe medal mcclays. Hell of a horse.
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Ambitious_Kate - She sounds so much like my Fiesta. You’re right, the spunky ones are just so full of personality that they can’t contain it. Looking back, it’s truly amazing that we all survived their shenanigans. But I wouldn’t trade one second of those times (even landing on the ground times), and I have a feeling that you wouldn’t either.
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Very true
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Never had one do this. All of mine go to the barn or to other horses.
Mine also make a beeline for the street 
Was leading both in a few months ago, one spooked and knocked me over and they both took off, up the bitumen driveway and out onto the street. Said incident broke my foot and I was barely walking, luckily my dad was home and he chased them, finally catching them a good few hundred metres up the road. Fortunately we live in a very quiet estate full of horse people, and they’d have to go several miles to actually end up anywhere they’d be likely to get into real trouble.
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I missed this thread’s first incarnation 
But my escapees had to head for the road as my farm sits at an intersection.
Fortunately both roads are 2-lane & not overly busy.
First one was distracted by the neighbors’ ponies & crossed one road to check out these Little Horses (he was 17H+).
Mini made a break & headed right for another neighbor’s veggie garden.
I ws longeing Hackney Pony just outside the pastures when he spooked, I lost the line & he made a fullspeed circuit of the fenceline, coming back to me to stand bugeyed & blowing.
This happened at a stable where I used to board. The horse threw his rider, went tearing down the driveway and along the road and eventually ran into a field and stopped. A bunch of us headed down and cautiously tried to form a circle around him. One woman’s husband came with us. He was not into horses at all and was hoping the horse would stay far from him. The horse walked right up to him.
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Mine have headed for the road because they Amish.
I was longlining a mare and tripped. She was going a good trot and I was looking at rocks as I did a Superman lunge behind her. I let go. We were working on the driveway. She got to the end of the driveway, stopped, and took a right on the road at a nice trot.
Thankfully she didn’t go far. That was day I found out the barn had a dog, as it came after me as I ran after the horse.
The funny one was when I went with a couple friends to check out a Dutch Harness stud. Guy who was showing the horse, running along the road, tripped and the horse go loose and high tailed it down the road. The wife was in no hurry to chase the horse - he was headed across the road, down a block or so, to the breeding shed. 
She knew exactly where he was going.
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Had an old Dutch Warmblood with two bad hind suspensories. He was “retired” but no one sent him the memo. His favorite thing to do when the neighbor’s horses broke out was to jump the fence and join them. He was hell to catch when he got loose.
One day I cornered him in an old barn. The other end was open with a huge manure pile sitting in front of the doorway. He stopped, burned around an looked at me, gave me a big “FU” and jumped over the manure pile. Took another hour of stalking him until he finally wore out and decided to quit.
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Retired much beloved event horse misses his days of going to competitions terribly. He was such a trooper and enjoyed the whole experience of being “very important” and doing his job and having fun.
The horses are able to see our house from their paddocks easily. Every time this 17 hand DWB would get out he would go and stand in front of the trailer. Eventually he would get impatient and march right up the flagstone walk to the front door of the house. He would then turn his head and watch me . This always resulted in lavish show type fussing with him . While I can’t say he was heading to the road it was clear he would like to be “on the road!”
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