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Horse escapes Morton Grove stable, gallops to Old Orchard mall

Published  September 17, 2016 8:54pm CDT
News
FOX 32 Chicago
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A stable employee walks a horse outside the Nordstrom store at Old Orchard in Skokie after the mare briefly escaped from its stable in Morton Grove and took off more than a mile to the mall before being captured. | Network Video Productions

SKOKIE (Sun-Times Media Wire) - A horse got away from a Morton Grove stable Saturday and galloped up Golf Road to the Old Orchard mall in Skokie, more than a mile away, before police officers were able to box it in at Golf Road and Skokie Boulevard.

“She decided to take a stroll,” said Frank Keener, a Skokie police sergeant. “I think she was looking to do a little shopping along Skokie Boulevard.”

“She was having a moment,” said stable employee Paula McKinnon, who walked the mare back to the Glen Grove Equestrian Center with a police escort. “She got nervous and took off.”

It happened just before 6 p.m. The horse crossed several streets during its half-hour or so of freedom but wasn’t hurt, Keener said.

He said it was only the third runaway horse he could recall in 20 years as a cop.

It wasn’t the Skokie Police Department’s first wildlife encounter. Saturday’s chase came almost a year to the day after officers helped corral a boa constrictor found on a parkway.