A huge Wellington Cup crowd was left stunned today when a member of the public ran onto the track into a field of charging horses at Trentham

Nobody was injured in the incident that saw jockeys dodging the track intruder while they were at full speed 150m from the end of race eight.

The intruder was arrested by police and taken from the track, with the disruption to the race seeing one of the horses declared a non-starter.

With thoroughbreds weighing around 500kg and travelling faster than 60km/h in the closing stages of the race, had any of them made direct contact with the intruder the results could have been fatal.