"Don't run, they'll only chase you!"
This happened a number of years ago, on one of the rare family outings where all of my family were actually present.

We were out on a fantastic summers day, dog walking, stick throwing, the usual stuff, when we reached a slight clearing in the trees and heard it. What "it" was, was unknown to us, kind of like a slowly growing staccato noise, that carried nothing other than a sense of dread.

As the noise seemed to reach it's peak, around a corner further ahead, came a herd of 8-9 horses going hell for leather, in our direction. Despite the clearing, there wasn't really a lot of space between the dense trees, stinging nettles and other arboreal paraphernalia.

So, being that it was three kids and two parents vs. a shitload of angry french meat product, we legged it, in the opposite direction. Or, at least, us kids did, my parents for some reason stood still and to the side of the path, we didn't stop for them, they'd already lived a lifetime of 30 or so years by then, so it only seemed right for them to make the sacrifice.

As we were running toward the nearest free place to get out of the way, I could clearly hear my dad shouting "Don't run, they'll only chase you!". It was a moot point by this time, they'd started chasing us first, so we were only running as a riposte.

We did reach safety and I clearly remember turning to see the stampede fly past us, and continue their journey out of our sight.

After being reunited with our parents, my dad revealed that wild horses of some sort had been running on that section of land since well before he was ever roaming it in his misspent youth and that they would simply run past you without any problems, he'd just forgotten to mention it.

Apologies for length, horses can run a fucking long way
(ShiftyBastard won the World Cup on World Soccer Champs 2010!, Fri 25 Apr 2008, 10:11, Reply)