Is it ever a good idea to spank a horse?

Madison, Wisconsin police say Nathaniel C. Robinson did just that and tried evade officers who saw him.

Nathaniel+C.+RobinsonThe horse, named Doc, was in a congested area at 2 a.m. Saturday morning during “Hippie Christmas” when an officer nearby “saw Doc suddenly lurch forward,” Channel 3000 reports.

The “holiday” refers to the time when many apartment leases expire near the University of Wisconsin and the “items left behind can be a forager’s dream,” according to the Cap Times.

The officer riding Doc reported hearing a “loud slap” on the horse’s “left rump area.”

The officer reported it sounded “like a 2 x 4 hitting him and many individuals around us gasped when they heard it,” according to a police report.

“Luckily, there was no one standing directly in front of my horse, or they would have been bumped or stepped on,” Doc’s partner said in her report, the Wisconsin State Journal reports.

Police spotted Robinson running away and he was apprehended nearby, according to NBC 15.

The alleged spanker, from Chicago, reportedly told police he didn’t know it was illegal to slap a horse.

“It is, and in this case, it’s harassment of a police animal, a normally well-behaved horse named Doc,” Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain tells the State Journal.

He was arrested and charged with “harassment of a police or fire animal and also for resisting/obstructing.”