Several years ago, my husband and I were visiting Baltimore’s beautiful Inner Harbor. It was a blustery winter day, and after walking around for a few hours, we decided to take a ride in a horse drawn carriage before heading back to the hotel.
The beautiful horses mesmerized me. Sure, I had seen horses before, but never really that close. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone in West Virginia lives on a farm and raises livestock. As we started our ride, my fascination with the horse was quickly replaced by my disbelief at the utter hostility of the drivers the horses had to contend with. They swerved around the horse while honking as if there were no possibility of harming or scaring them. I immediately began to feel guilty for taking the ride.
I have no doubt that the horses must have been terrified; I know every car that went by made me flinch for the poor animal that was being forced to drag my large butt around for fifteen minutes. That was my first and last ride on an animal.
A few months ago, a New York City carriage horse was startled by music in the park and ran into traffic; he didn’t survive. While I do realize that there are jobs at stake, I can’t help but be more concerned with the welfare of the animals involved. Any person who can look at the photo at that link and still approve of this industry is probably of the frothing, anti-animal rights variety.
This Wednesday, a New York City council member is set to introduce legislation that will ban the use of horse drawn carriages in the city. Naturally, there is a huge opposition; to supporters of the industry, the horses are irrelevant - think of all of the money that will be lost! Opponents of the bill, including Mayor Bloomberg, claim that the carriages are symbolic of New York City and it would be a mistake to stop using them. In other words – think of all of the money that will be lost!
Tourists love them, right? Sure, the horses are beautiful and people love the romantic idea of a carriage ride. Most of them never even consider that the animal may be scared, mistreated, wishing he were eating grass on a farm where he belongs…whatever. I know I didn’t. It took a ride for me to figure that out. Nevertheless, if there were no horse drawn carriages in New York, people wouldn’t start abandoning their reservations en masse. Let’s get real.
