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Ponies Run Free in Icy Streets of Staten Island During Snowstorm

By  Nicholas Rizzi Rachel Holliday Smith and Ben Fractenberg | March 14, 2017 11:11am | Updated on March 14, 2017 11:31am

Staten Islanders may have thought it was enough to deal with icy roads, closed streets and limited bus service during Tuesday's storm — but they didn't count on this.

A pair of ponies was spotted prancing through traffic on the slushy streets near Hylan Boulevard and Richmond Avenues by drivers who posted photos of the pair on social media.

The ponies, Blondie and Jewels, escaped from a stable on Wakefield Road and were spotted by an off-duty officer on Hylan Boulevard, NYPD Chief of Police Terrance Monahan said at an unrelated press conference.

The officer used a tow strap he had in his truck, grabbed the ponies and tied them to a lamppost while they waited for a vehicle to take them home.

"We got a radio car there and we were able to return them back to the stables," Monahan said. "They’re safe, they’re in great shape."

#NOW #ESU #Truck5 assists the @NYPD123Pct in wrangling in these runaway ponies in #StatenIsland. Ponies were safely returned to their owners pic.twitter.com/bruBviMdSb

Blondie, 9, and Jewels, 5, got loose after the wind blew open the barn door of the Wakefield Place home of movie producer Julius Nasso.

"I got phone calls from everyone. My neighbors, my local police station," said Nasso, who got the ponies for his 5-year-old daughter. "Thank god nobody got hurt and the horses were safe."

He said he thanked police "a thousand times" when they brought the ponies back safely to his stable.

"I apologized, I know how dangerous it was," he said. "At least they weren't chasing bank robbers."

Nasso previously produced numerous martial arts films, including ones that launched Steven Seagal's career.

He was arrested in 2003 after federal prosecutors said he used Gambino mob enforcers to extort Seagal out of money and spent a year in prison for extortion, the New York Daily News reported.

"Anyone that knows me knows what really happened, it never inhibited me from making movies," Nasso previously told DNAinfo New York. "It's just a schoolyard fight that got out of hand."

He teamed up with local karate master Jhong Uhk Kim in 2015 to work on his first martial arts film since his release, "Darc," which featured a cameo from Blondie and Jewels.

“They’re in the background running around having fun," he said.

Robert Stasio, 51, of Eltingville, told Gothamist that he was inside his home when he saw the ponies run by his window. He got into to his truck and started to chasing them to catch them, eventually ditching his car and pursuing them on foot.

"I followed them and they started running," Stasio told the blog.

"As I was doing that I see the cops coming down the block with the lights on. I ran and I grab them by the mane and I was holding them, and [officers] were trying to get a rope or something."

Stasio said he held them until the NYPD officer came with the tow strap and took over.

"The ponies were pulling me, they were dragging me in the snow, and then eventually I got them to stop and the guy came and put the rope around their neck and tied one to the pole and then we got the other one," Stasio told Gothamist.

This isn't the borough's first run-in with animals running around the streets. In 2012, a runaway zebra and mini horse turned heads when they bolted from the yard they live in and galloped through Travis.

A kangaroo named Buster also escaped from the same person's yard in 2015.