Snow turns to rein
PONIES BREAK FREE DURING BLIZZARD THAT WASN’T
WHAT the hay!?
A pair of ponies broke free from a Staten Island barn and hoofed it across the borough Tuesday before cops finally collared the runaway beasts.
The ponies — 9-year-old Blondie and his 5-year-old daughter Jewels — took off just before 9 a.m., after heavy winds blew open their barn on Wakefield Road in Eltingville.
“I was taking a shower,” said owner Julius Nasso. “Then I noticed that my phone rang. I had no idea what was happening.”
The ponies were spotted moseying across Hylan Blvd. near Preston Ave. about 9:30 a.m. Witnesses began phoning authorities, setting in motion a snowy search for the tiny ponies.
Robert Stasio, 50, said he couldn’t believe his eyes when he spotted the animals breeze past his home on Retford Ave.
“I thought I was seeing things,” he said. “They were just running up my block. I looked out the windows and I see these two horses, these two ponies, flying by.”
Stasio said he jumped in his truck in an attempt to find the ponies, spotting them about two blocks away. They took off, he said, but he found them once again a few minutes later. By that time, police arrived and Stasio said he tried to help cops rein in the ponies.
He grabbed Blondie by the mane, he said, then grabbed Jewels with his other hand after the pony slipped free of a police officer’s grip. The disturbed horses began to pull Stasio as he tried to hang on.
“I was sliding in the snow a little bit,” said Stasio, who worked at his uncle’s petting zoo in Coney Island as a kid. “It was like a rodeo.”
Anthony Parente — an off-duty police officer — was on his way to work when he spotted the ponies at Hylan Blvd. and Richmond Ave. He said he pulled over to the side of the road to help at the same time Stasio arrived on the scene.
The 11-year NYPD veteran said the ponies looked “skittish” when everyone came to corral them. Parente remembered he had a tow strap in his car, he said, and made a loose-fitting loop at each end to put around the ponies.
That’s when the pair seemed to calm down, and authorities were able to secure the ponies to a lamppost.
“That part was relatively easy,” Parente said. “Just like walking a dog, we walked them to the sidewalk and they complied.”
Mayor de Blasio commended Parente for his quick response.
“I want to thank our cowboy officer for having quickly addressed the situation,” he said.
It’s not the first time the ponies’ owner grabbed headlines.
Nasso pleaded guilty in 2003 to conspiring with the mob to shakedown actor Steven Seagal. Nasso, who produced Seagal films including “Under Siege 2” and “On Deadly Ground,” pleaded guilty to conspiring with the Gambino crime family to extort his former partner.
“This was a plea offer I could not refuse,” Nasso said in Brooklyn Federal Court.
He served a year and a day behind bars.
After welcoming back the ponies Tuesday afternoon, Nasso said they appeared relieved to be home.
“They were happy, because they knew they were out of their environment,” he said. “They went right back. They started eating their hay.”