A drunken man accused of running a red light in a horse and carriage tried to pin the blame on his pony, according to police.
John Mulvenna, of England's South Yorkshire, allegedly told officers that he only went through the stoplight because his steed, Fred, is colorblind, The Star reports.
Officials weren't swayed by the 56-year-old's defense, and Mulvenna later pleaded guilty to being drunk while driving a horse and carriage.
Mulvenna was fined about $82 and issued a 12-month conditional discharge.
"I had a few pints and thought it was fine, then whoops-a-daisy there was a policewoman," he said after his hearing, according to The Star. “I wasn’t stupefied drunk.”
Mulvenna's lawyer, John Dobbin, told UPI that his client drank four pints of beer before taking the reins.
"He thought he was in a proper state to control the horse and trap," Dobbin said. "It is clear that he was not."
Heeding traffic signals is the driver's responsibility -- not the horse's.
But Mulvenna might have been right when he claimed that Fred was colorblind.
Researchers studying equine vision determined that "[i]t is most likely that horses see the world in a similar way to humans with red-green colour deficiencies," according to HorseTalk.co.uk. "Red, orange, yellow and green probably all appear the same."