WASHINGTON - A horse that was injured in an incident before Tuesday's inaugural parade is recovering at an animal rescue center in Maryland.

Mouse, a 10-year-old apaloosa, suffered a mangled leg and multiple lacerations when it spooked while staging for the parade near the intersection of 4th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue Tuesday.

"It was right in the center of the formation where the parade participants were forming," Days End Farm Horse Rescue's Brooke Vrany said. Vrany was the first responder, rushing to the scene after the call went out.

"It took about five minutes, actually, but it felt like a very long drive," she recalled. "Finding that the horse was on the ground and the hind end was stuck up in the mount of the winch."

Vrany and 11 other workers spent nearly two hours to free the horse from the grill of the truck in which it had become entangled. They had to disassemble part of the vehicle's winch.

The incident partially led to the parade being delayed about an hour.

"I want to write to the president, apologizing to him for holding up his parade," Vrany said.

The horse is now recovering in the barn at the Days End Farm Horse Rescue in Lisbon, Md.

The Humane Society of the United States posted this video of the incident on its Web site.

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