A crew from Bradford Fire Station almost needed ranching skills after discovering a pair of horses running loose on a main road.

Leading Firefighter Sean Cahill said: "You don't get many horses on the loose in the inner city and it's not a thing I've come across before in 20 years of firefighting.

"We were driving up Wakefield Road on the way back from a car fire at about 3am yesterday when a woman flagged us down and said there were two horses loose.

"They were quite big and it was obvious that if they weren't caught they might cause a very serious accident.

"After about 15 minutes we managed to corner them in a car park and got some ropes round them. We didn't have to chase them but kept walking up to them to gain their confidence.

"They were in quite a distressed state - they'd obviously been frightened by the cars on the road - and we gave them seven buckets of water to calm them down.

"We got them on a grass verge, tied them to two trees and asked the police to attend.''

A police spokesman said that after efforts to trace the horses' owners had proved unsuccessful the animals had been taken to an approved pound to be looked after.