Hmm, another backer with zero insight on horses, their behaviours, and the industry as a whole. Now that’s what’s sad.

Here’s my question to people like the OP and the lovely Leah Michelle: What do you propose as a solution for the horses and people you’re fighting to put out of work? 

Let’s make the question easier and pretend all the humans employed by this industry magically find new jobs and all we really have to worry about are the unemployed horses…

What do you think keeps one of these horses fed, shod and under veterinary care? I’ll give you a hint: it isn’t your fluffy bunny fee fee’s. 

What do you think keeps a horse, any horse, out of the slaughter pipeline? A purpose. With nearly 180,000 horses slaughtered last year I think it’s pretty clear horses with no purpose have a pretty grim fate. Of course purpose is in the eye of the beholder but let’s be honest: few people find purpose in these unwanted horses, if people did they wouldn’t be in the slaughter pipe line. After you’ve added the proposed unemployable carriage horses to this already over saturated market of ‘low end’ horses will you be able to honestly say you’ve helped better their lives knowing you contributed to their literal slaughter? 

With any industry, but especially the equine industry, it’s important (albeit difficult) to separate the bad seeds from the whole fruit and every. single. discipline. has bad seeds. When you ban an entire entire industry for the actions of a minority you are setting a seriously scary precedent for ALL disciplines… Should we ban dressage because of rolkur? Should we ban cross-country because of how many high level horses and riders have died or suffered serious injury? Should we ban the Halter Horse industry because cowrses? 

I suppose most of that rant was useless though because it seems majority of people who oppose the carriage industry aren’t actually involved with horses at all and have no idea about the current market and just how many horses die because of it.

not to mention that many of the smaller carriage companies take excellent care of the horses and rotate them so they only work one or two days a week and spend the rest of their time happy out on farms outside the city.  the carriage industry in NY can and should be more regulated with better animal welfare laws, but it should not be shut down.

shutting down the carriage industry will send thousands of horses to slaughter.

NYC has probably the most scrutinizing, nit picky, and at times ridiculous regulations you could possibly imagine. Mandated vet checks multiple times a year, required time off (minimums are met, and exceeded). Carriage stables are well ventilated, staffed 24 hours a day, every stall has fire sprinklers. They are inspected some ungodly number of times a month due to false claims and reports filed by batshit nutjob Animal Rights Activists and their money grubbing backers…The hoops they have to jump through in some cases are almost unconstitutional to be perfectly honest. And they do it to appease the crazies. But they do it, and they do it with their chins up, and their horses look great, and they’re well fed, loved, taken care of. There has not been a TRUE report of abuse for nearly 30 years…considering how often someone is crawling up the drivers, owners, and carriage horses asses, you’d think if there was real issue, someone would have found it.