David Pike was sitting on his condo balcony near Fort York Blvd. and Bathurst St. just after noon, talking to a client, when he heard the clip-clopping sound of hooves on pavement.

At first, the freelance photographer thought it was just another police horse passing southbound over the bridge opposite Fort York National Historic Site — until he got a closer look.

“I was like: ‘There’s no one on that horse,’” Pike, 28, said.

Pike watched as the horse, wearing a lime-green vest, turned westbound onto Fort York Blvd., into the oncoming lane. Fortunately, he said, traffic stopped to let the horse trot through the gridlock.

He managed to snap a picture of the horse at this point. He lost sight of it after it continued westbound and the Gardiner Expressway got in the way. He said it didn’t look panicked, but was moving at quite a clip.

“It wasn’t sauntering by any means,” Pike said.

Meanwhile, Pike’s client was still on the line.

So Pike dialed 911 and told the operator that the police had a runaway horse.

At first, the operator didn’t believe him. “(The operator) was like: ‘How did you know it was a police horse? I’m like: ‘Because it was wearing the vest,” Pike said.

Const. Gary Long confirmed that Toronto police did lose a horse at some point on Monday afternoon, but said it was recovered some time later.

No one was injured, he said.