The news comes less than a week after a carriage horse named Ryder collapsed onto a Manhattan street, drawing a crowd of spectators.
Horse-drawn carriages with customers ride through Central Park on a hot day on August 3rd, 2022.Horse-drawn carriages with customers ride through Central Park on a hot day on August 3rd, 2022.Animal rights advocates and lawmakers are calling on Manhattan’s district attorney to probe claims of abuse connected to the city’s horse carriage industry.
City Councilman Robert Holden from Queens renewed his own calls to end the practice of horse carriages after theof a horse in Manhattan last week. On Tuesday, he’ll join with members of nonprofit animal advocacy and political action group NYCLASS – New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets – outside of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office to call for more thorough oversight to prevent such incidents from happening again. “Let's look at the industry as a whole,” Holden told Gothamist on Monday. “Are they protecting the interests of the horses, who, of course, we have to protect? They can't protect themselves. They can't speak.”The latest push came less than a week after a carriage horse named Ryder collapsed onto a Manhattan street on a hot summer evening, drawing a crowd of spectators. Police officers responding to the scene had to hose off the animal before getting it back to its feet. Subsequent footage of the incident alsothe horse carriage operator aggressively trying to get the horse back to its feet as its footing started to wane. Pete Donohue, a spokesman for Transport Workers Union Local 100, the group that represents horse carriage drivers, had told Gothamist that the ailing horse was suffering from equine protozoal myeloencephalitis, a neurological disease horses can contract from eating infected opossum droppings, and not heat exhaustion. Edita Birnkrant, the executive director at NYCLASS, has been adamant about putting an end to horse-drawn carriages in the city and has stood with Holden in hopes of passing new legislation to end the practice. “The carriage drivers and owners care so little for these horses that they don't have emergency procedures in place for something like this. We've seen this over and over again,” she told Gothamist in an interview last week. “When horses have life-threatening emergencies, they have no vet there to treat them and they either suffer or die or are at risk of dying.” On Friday, Holden joined with NYCLASS, Voters for Animal Rights and PETA to announce their own arrangements with a certified sanctuary to formally retire Ryder, the lawmaker said. The group had reached out to the man Holden’s office had identified as Ryder’s owner, Ian McKeever, but had not heard back as of Monday, Holden said.In an interview with Gothamist, TWU Local 100 carriage horse driver Hansen said it was unfair to suggest that drivers did not care for their horses. As for McKeever, Hansen said that while he was riding with Ryder that day, he did not own the horse or the carriage, as he was working as a fill-in driver that day. Hansen said McKeever had been riding for 35 years, but Wednesday was the first time he'd done so since before the pandemic. Nevertheless, he told her he was still shaken up by last week’s incident in Manhattan.She added, “He said, ‘Listen I panicked. I tried to get the horse up, and when I tried to get the horse up. All of a sudden, there was an angry mob.’"
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