Man In Horse Mask Video Provides Comic Relief During Hurricane Sandy

As East Coast residents braced for Hurricane Sandy, a man in a horse mask tried to lighten the mood by parading through the streets of Washington, D.C.

Jimmy Kruyne ran through the streets of the D.C. neighborhood of Bloomingdale in shorts and a horse mask.

Kruyne gained national attention as “Horse Mask Guy” when NBC’s Washington affiliate captured footage of him without a shirt and wearing a horse mask. The only other clothing worn by Horse Mask Guy was jogging shorts and sneakers.

“See that person jogging. There’s a shirtless man jogging wearing a horse mask. I’m not quite sure what that’s all about, but I think perhaps people are getting stir crazy in this thing,” said a NBC 4 television reporter who couldn’t help but laugh at Horse Mask Guy. “I don’t know where he came from, but I guess there’s an attitude with storms. You can either be scared and hide in your house or you can have a sense of humor about it. I think he’s got a sense of humor about it and, obviously, wanted to get a little bit of attention. We are obliging him.”

The video of Horse Mask Guy, which can be viewed below, shows Kuyne raising up his arms in victory and jogging.

The reporter pointed out Kruyne’s braving the storm in little attire.

“I’m wearing all of this stuff and I’m so through and I’m cold,” she said. “This guy is shirtless – I don’t even know what to say about him.”

Kruyne provided comic relief to East Coast residents hunkering down as Hurricane Sandy touched down in Atlantic City, N.J., Monday night.

“Who is winning Hurricane Sandy? Probably the shirtless guy jogging around D.C. in the horse mask,” wrote the Twitter account for gossip website Gawker.

Gawker provided video and GIFs of Kruyne strutting his stuff in a horse mask.

D.C. website DCist got an exclusive interview with Kruyne, who explained why he decided to run through Bloomingdale in a horse mask.

"Little spontaneous jogging hopefully put a smile on people's face before this awful storm," Kruyne told the website.

The YouTube video of Horse Mask Guy, titled “hurricanehorse,” went viral on the video sharing site, with nearly 175,000 views as of Tuesday afternoon.

The video is also hugely popular, with 10,534 YouTube users liking the video and only 300 users disliking the clip.

YouTube user stuff4ever encapsulated the thoughts of many users in his comment on the video.

“Riding out_ a hurricane ... literally,” the user wrote.