Escaped pair hoof it down busy road

No sense in closing the barn door now.

Drivers on Jericho Turnpike early yesterday evening in the West Hills area of Huntington found themselves keeping pace with a pair of escaped horses.

The horses -- one brown, one white -- got away from their owner at about 6:30 p.m., according to police and witnesses.

Giddy up!

The equine exasperation passed Woodbury Road headed east.

Courtney Quinn, a 56-year-old retired Long Island Rail Road worker who lives on Hartman Hill Road, said she was out watering her garden plants when she heard trotting, noticed the sounds were coming from a horse, of course, and called the police.

"I looked out, and I saw them go by -- and I went to my front yard to take a better look and then I realized they were riderless," she said later in an interview.

The tail, er, tale of the escape ended when motorists corralled the horseplay near -- you can't make this up -- the Golden Coach Diner, near Oakwood Road.

A police spokesman did not immediately know where the horses came from.

The lesson: You can lead a horse to . . . oh, forget it.

-- Matthew Chayes

with Joie Tyrrell