Lady, a seemingly healthy carriage horse, collapsed and died Tuesday while walking to her stable after giving just two rides. Almost immediately, animal rights extremists at NYCLASS claimed that Lady died because she was a carriage horse — and carriage-horse drivers universally, they claim, overwork and abuse their animals.
They grotesquely started posting graphic photos of Lady lying on the street on social media and had dozens of protest signs rush-printed featuring her dead body. For the 7,000th time, they called for banning our iconic carriage horses.
They didn’t, however, have the decency to wait for a necropsy to be performed, which would provide medical facts about this sad and rare event. Neither did a handful of opportunistic politicians who were so desperate for attention that they quickly jumped on the NYCLASS bandwagon: mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa, Councilman Bob Holden, Councilman Erik Bottcher, and Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal. Rosenthal gallingly called Lady’s death “preventable.”
Most of them attended a NYCLASS press conference led by NYCLASS Executive Director Edita Birnkrant. Birnkrant has a history of pouring fake blood outside stables, running after horses on foot, and was the recipient of a court order directing her not to push, shove, or shout at carriage drivers. These politicians spoke over the prone body of a woman lying on the sidewalk while wearing a rubber horse mask.
Well, a necropsy was performed on Wednesday by a pathologist at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. The results highlight that some people will just lie and shamelessly say anything to advance their political agenda or public profile.
The preliminary gross necropsy report states Lady had a small tumor in her adrenal gland that likely caused an aortic rupture, a sudden and “silent killer” event that typically comes without warning symptoms. Such a sudden-death medical episode would kill a horse anywhere — in a field, park, stable, trail, or street — at any time.
The pathologist’s report does not include any observations indicating neglect or abuse. In fact, the pathologist who evaluated Lady’s weight, coat, and muscle tone wrote she was “in good body condition.”
“There was zero wrongdoing or negligence here,” Dr. Gabriel Cook, Lady’s veterinarian, said.
Unfortunately, animal rights extremists — who think having a horse give a carriage ride in a park is akin to slavery — repeatedly spew falsehoods. A handful of politicians then repeat these insidious fabrications, which include:
- “Horses work all day in NYC traffic.” False. The iconic Central Park horses spend almost all of their time outside their stables in the 843-acre Central Park. Very few customer rides are on city streets. The time they spend on the street is largely limited to when they walk to and from their stables.
- “Horses pulling carriages is cruel.” False. These are large horses selectively bred over centuries to transport people and materials. The money they earn from rides pays for their food, housing, and health care as required and specified by NYC regulations.
- “Horses are stressed out being in the city.” False. A peer-reviewed scientific study by Western University and published by JAVMA in 2017 showed that NYC carriage horses have normal cortisol levels, indicating they are not stressed and well-acclimated to city life.
This is not to say there couldn’t always be improvements. The union and industry have implemented a number of reforms and enhancements over the last three years, including creating a Safety Committee to increase internal oversight. An additional water trough for the horses, a goal of ours for years, was installed by the city in 2023. The city’s long-dormant Rental Horse Advisory Board was revived.
The city can — and should — provide additional oversight. There used to be a full-time equine veterinarian in the Department of Health who kept an eye on the Central Park carriage horses and the many other places in the city where horses are located. That position should be finally filled. The city should install hitching posts in Central Park as an extra safeguard against the rare but preventable instances of a horse trotting away from its handler.
As the carriage drivers’ longtime spokesperson and union shop steward, I never particularly like being in the news — and Lady’s tragic and unexpected death certainly is newsworthy. Our horses are beloved, attracting tourists from around the world and local passengers celebrating special events.
However, the recent spotlight was an opportunity to invite people into our stables, educate the public about our horses, and expose the animal-rights special interests for what they are: zealots who are not interested in helping carriage horses but only in exploiting them.
Hansen is a carriage horse driver and TWU Local 100 shop steward.
