After video showed a horse collapse as it pulled a carriage along a street in Manhattan, animal rights advocates are now renewing their push to ban horse-drawn carriages in the city.
The incident occurred Wednesday evening in Hell's Kitchen, with the horse, named Ryder, pulling the cart up Ninth Avenue when it suddenly fell to the ground, witnesses said. Another witness said that after the horse went down, the man driving the carriage started to hit the animal with a small whip, hoping to get it back on its feet.
The driver had no choice but to let the horse lay there, while the NYPD doused it with water and ice, assuming it had suffered from heat exhaustion. Ryder stayed resting on the hot pavement for some time, but eventually got back up on its own.
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The horse was doing much better Thursday, resting and eating at the stables and hopefully putting on some weight, after it did appear noticeably thin. Ryder will be off the streets for the foreseeable future, due to a neurological disease that affects the brain. The union that represents horse carriage drivers said that a veterinarian ultimately made a preliminary diagnosis of EPM, or Equine Protozoal Myeloencephalitis — an infection caused by possum droppings.
"The neurological effects of the EPM caused the horse to stumble and fall as the carriage driver is trying to change lanes and turn here on 45th street on the way home," said Christina Hansen, a spokesperson for the carriage drivers' union. "And once he was down, he had difficulty getting up again from the neurological symptoms of EPM."
Hansen said that the video of Ryder on the ground is being weaponized by activist groups, and that he was in "rough shape" when he came into their program after being used as a buggy horse for a Pennsylvania farmer. She also said that the horse was not overheated or dehydrated.
Whether Ryder collapsed as a result of EPM or if was heat-related doesn't matter much to critics, however. The incident has reinvigorated their calls to end horse-drawn carriages in the city for good.
"They don’t belong in the city! It has to stop," said Rachel Ejsmont, an animal rights activist. "We’re fed up, it's traumatizing for us."
There are 200 licensed carriage horses in NYC, an industry that includes 130 active drivers. The industry could face a seismic shift, all thanks to a bill by Queens City Councilmember Robert Holden that would force carriage drivers to switch to electric carriages — a move that can cost anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000.
"Where they have the electric carriages now, the drivers love it because they work in the heat, they can work in the cold," Holden said. "This is 2022, not 1822. We need to look at how we treat our animals, and we’re not doing a good job."
But the drivers, and their union, disagree. Hansen worries that no horses will mean less business from tourists, and wonders who is going to pay for the new electric carriages.
"I’m a horse person through and through. I’m not a golf cart driver ... There’s no evidence that they’ll make enough money to support their families with it," she said. "(Ryder) would have been disposed in the slaughterhouse, except that he became a carriage horse."
Then there's the question of where the out-of-work horses would then go, and how would their veterinarian bills get paid. But People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and political action group NYCLASS said that wouldn't be an issue.
"We can make sure that a home is available to every single horse being used by this industry," said Ashly Byrne, a member of the group. "We have safe loving homes that they can be retired to so again there’s no excuse."
Holden is working on getting more councilmembers to sign on to his bill. He says he’s spoken with Mayor Eric Adams about this bill, who Holden said is open to suggestions and more information.
