Speeding Maserati spooks horses

Horses from a Tauherenikau property JJ, left, and Annie jumped over a fence after being scared by a speeding Maserati. PHOTO/EMILY NORMAN

A Maserati travelling at speeds of "150km/h plus" along a rural gravel road has angered a Tauherenikau family whose horses were so spooked by the reckless driving, they jumped a fence and fled 2km down the road.

Jonathon Foster said he heard the light blue Maserati approaching for 30 seconds before seeing it speed along Phillip's Line, freaking the "usually hard-to-spook" horses.

"I was expecting a really old muscle car but then this thing just comes barrelling down the road, picking up dust at mass speed at around 4pm on Monday," he said.

"Tankers drive past here all the time at 100km/h and that also doesn't faze the horses at all."

Mr Foster said he had no vehicle at the time and the quad bike wasn't working so he had to run after the fleeing horses.

"What I'd say to this guy would be to watch your speed. There's tight corners around our road, he was slowing down a good 200m before a corner and the corner was almost still too tight for him," he said.

"There could have been kids walking home around the corner and he could have collected them."

Mr Foster's mother Jo took to the neighbourhood website Neighbourly to vent in an open letter addressed to the unknown Maserati driver.

"What you don't perhaps realise is that you were travelling so fast down a narrow 3m-wide gravel road that you were almost killed by two horses escaping your presence," she wrote.

"You took your life in your hands and you endangered the lives of others.

"By travelling at the speed you were travelling at, you endanger the amount of people who use our little road every day.

"The speed you were travelling at means that you would not be able to stop in time for anyone who pulled out within a 200m range of you. Cars regularly travel that road at 100km per hour, you were certainly exceeding this.

"We live on these gravel roads, stop putting our lives at risk because you like to drive your car fast."