Watch: Horse stuns cafegoers while racing through bar

In horse racing terminology, "bar" normally refers to the lowest odds of horses not mentioned in the betting forecast.

However, in Chantilly, northern France, the word took on a more usual meaning for one particular horse.

Having escaped her racing stable, the young horse ran for the nearest watering hole, becoming a nightmare for customers who scampered for safety as she snorted and bucked through the premises.

A CCTV camera captured how the horse ran from one end of the bar to the other before making a U-turn and darting back, still bucking its legs into the air and bumping into the furniture, before leaving.

There were just seven customers the moment the horse entered, and they didn't stay long.

Trainer Jean-Marie Beguignem told newspaper Ouest-Franc that he lost hold of the horse, who had what he called a "penchant for running away".

The animal tore off down the road and across a roundabout before entering the bar, where no-one dared ask: "why the long face?"