Police nab drunken California man for riding horse on highway

— -- The California Highway Patrol sent out an unusual message on Twitter over the weekend: "No, you may not ride your horse on the freeway."

The warning came early Saturday morning when the agency said it arrested an intoxicated man who was riding horseback on the 91 Freeway in Long Beach, California, about 20 minutes southeast of Los Angeles.

The suspect, 29-year-old Luis Alfredo Perez of Placentia, California, was stopped around 1 a.m. and asked to perform a sobriety field test, according to police, who said his blood-alcohol level came in at more than twice the legal limit.

"No, you may not ride your horse on the freeway, and certainly not while intoxicated," CHP tweeted early Saturday, sharing images from the scene. "Don't put yourself, your beautiful animal, or others in danger of being killed in traffic."

"We get a chuckle out of the interesting situations we encounter from time to time," the agency added, "but one thing the CHP does not do is 'horse' around with DUI."

The suspect's horse, Guera, was released to the Perez's mother "almost immediately after the arrest," according to CHP.

CHP said it's been "getting a lot of out of the ordinary animals on our urban freeways lately,” but stopped short of calling it the craziest thing it had ever encountered.

The agency struck a light tone in responding to a Twitter user who wrote: "CHP probably went, 'Now we've seen everything.'"

"We almost did," CHP responded. "But just when you think you've heard and seen it all ... you haven't."