Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Requiem for a Carriage Horse

This horse dropped dead yesterday

"Healthy horses do not drop dead on the street."

Do you believe that carriage rides are just innocent romantic ways to spend the time? Not really. Not in this day and age of car pollution and traffic.

Did you know that the average carriage horse in NYC has to travel 2 miles to get to Central Park and then work 9 hours a day (on average it's more) and then walk the 2 miles back to their stable before repeating 7 DAYS A WEEK - 365 DAYS A YEAR?

No, carriage rides are not innocent or romantic. They are money making machines for greedy owners that prey on gullible tourists and people that just don't get it.

"Stacy Wolf of the ASPCA said: 'The life of a carriage horse on New York City streets is extremely difficult and life threatening and the ASPCA has long believed that carriage horses were never meant to live and work in today's urban setting,'"

This horse in question was beautiful. How did the owner not see he was in distress?

Necropsy results are expected today to determine what killed him.

Directly or indirectly the work on the street is what killed him. It's so sad.

According to Gothamist.com carriage horses have been seen working illegally in inclement weather, drinking from filthy street puddles to slake their thirst and are at risk of and do get hit by buses.

What's worse is that this news - from the streets of New York City - wasn't reported in the mainstream US news. It came from England. WTF?

Kudos to Lea Michele of Glee fame who is furious over this senseless death. She filmed a PETA PSA to encourage the ban just in the last few days and tweeted this yesterday: "Just woke up to the saddest news about one of the carriage horses dying the midtown Nyc. This has to stop! Please," Lea Michele tweeted.

We couldn't agree more.

Daily Mail News Article

Gothamist.com News Article on NYC's silence over carriage horse death

Go toBanhdc.org to learn how to ban this stupid practice from big cities like NY. Caution: Graphic images that will immediately affect how you view the next horse drawn carriage. Not so innocent and romantic after all.

1 comment:

www.cspoulsen.info said...

I love horses. I naively thought that their owners loved and cared for them too. The article proves otherwise....7 days a week????

I've taken one carriage ride but will never take another. This needs to come to the attention of the TV people.

Such a beautiful animal...very sad and probably unnecessary...please let us know what the necropsopy tests show. Thanks for posting.