Video shows cowboys chasing runaway cow down busy highway

Oklahoma commuters have some real beef with a runaway cow.

A cow escaped from a trailer load and made a dash for freedom straight through Oklahoma City’s Monday morning commute.

Videos taken by KOCO 5 showed two different angles of the cow running into the middle of an Oklahoma highway as it’s chased down by cowboys on horseback and emergency crews. 

The footage from the local news station’s helicopters followed the cow as it continued to evade capture, running along the busy highway. 

Two ATVs cornered the cow against a fence along the highway, trying to steer it towards safety, but the barnyard animal swiftly hurled one of the vehicles to continue the udderly dangerous chase.

The bovine ran down Interstate 40 near Pennsylvania Avenue as one of the horseback cowboys ran it down. “Get him, get him, stay on him,” the man in the helicopter is heard chanting in the viral video.

Just in time, the cowboy lassoed the runaway, capturing it in one throw. “Yes! Yes! You got him, you got him, you got him. Woohoo! That is awesome,” the voice in the video cheered as the cowboy finally slows his catch to a near stop in the middle of an intersection.

A second cowboy quickly rode up and lassoed the cow’s hind legs in one fell swoop knocking the animal down, making him a real ground beef. He then dismounts his horse and approaches the distraught runaway.

Blake Igert — a contractor for the Oklahoma National Stockyards, “the largest stocker/ feeder cattle market in the world,” according to its website — explained to KOCO 5 that he was beginning a long day of sales as part of the stockyard’s pinback crew when he received a call alerting him to the runaway cow. He immediately jumped on his horse and galloped down the highway.

“It was a little more intense this time,” Igert said. “We were right in the middle of traffic. The cows were heading right into the interstate.”

Kelli Payne, president of Oklahoma National Stockyards told Newsweek that the cow was not from her stockyard. “There was a trailer load of cattle being hauled in and there was a malfunction with the back gate,” she said noting that this kind of situation is “extremely rare.”