Runaway racehorse Rufio escapes course and runs two miles away in odd incident | Other | Sport

A racehorse managed to escape a course in Scotland and galloped nearly two miles into town before being caught. Rubio unseated jockey Lucy Brown before making the “short journey”, with videos on social media showing him running down a road.

The horse, who was seen still wearing its saddle and No. 7 race number by the time it had escaped, was taking part in the Virgin Bet Christmas Jumper Raceday at Musselburgh racecourse. It had started the final race at 3:15pm.

However, Rubio managed to unseat rider Brown before sprinting off the course. The racecourse have described the incident as an “extremely rare occurrence”.

The 10-year-old horse had clearly made its way over the barriers and it galloped towards the local town of Prestonpans, in the east of Edinburgh. It was later confirmed that Rubio had been located by racecourse staff and was returned to the venue later on. The jockey was also okay.

A racecourse spokesman said: “A horse unseated its rider in the last race and made its way out of the racecourse.

“This is an extremely rare occurrence and fortunately the horse was returned unscathed to the racecourse by our ground staff after its short journey towards Prestonpans.”

A video on social media showed the horse bursting down a road in Prestonpans. It passes several parked cars along its reported two-mile route. It is reported that nobody was injured.

Earlier this year, a racehorse escaped a course in Australia and made its way to a nearby train station. Passengers were seen trying to get out of the way as the animal amusingly stood behind the yellow line and attempted to board a train.

Transport for NSW shared security footage and saw the funny side. They joked that the horse was a “missing individual” and wrote: “He was reported to be wearing only a rug and demonstrating a bit of horseplay. He appeared to pursue an informant along the platform before unsuccessfully attempting to board a train service.

“The individual then moved to the car park area where he was taken in by his owner and he was returned to his residence in a stable condition.

“No one involved in the incident is intending to take any further action as the individual was only horsing around!”