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It's one of the most famous cities in the world, boasting a string of instantly recognisable sights from yellow cabs to steam spewing from the sewers.

But one thing you don't expect to see in a city with more than 26,000 people living in each square mile is a runaway horse galloping through the streets.

Yet that's exactly the strange sight that greeted New Yorkers when a carriage horse broke loose from its handler in midtown Manhattan on Sunday.

YouTube footage circulated by a group pushing for carriage horses to be banned from Central Park showed the steed trotting along between the city's 10th and 11th avenues.

And it's clearly not clued up on the Big Apple's highway code as the horse is seen travelling against the run of traffic.

The horse, called Barney, was stalked by two NYPD cars , which eventually shepherded the animal into an empty car park before it was rounded up and returned to its stable.

Christina Hansen, a spokesperson for the Horse and Carriage Association of New York City, told pix11.com: "This doesn’t happen often, we have a stellar safety record."