“manhattan it’s probably the worst place on the planet for a horse to work, traffic, noise, pollution and heat,” said Robert Holden, city councilor for New York 71 years old and author of a text that provides for the replacement of horse-drawn carriages with electric vehicles by June 2024.
The horse-drawn carriages of New York, emblem of the city
For years the defenders of the animal rights cause – more and more numerous in the United States – have wanted to put an end to this tourist attraction, which has existed since the 19th century around the green lung of Manhattan.
New York now has 130 coachmen who share 68 licenses and about 200 horses stabled in municipal stables. Collapsed on a hot afternoon on the pavement of Manhattan’s immense 9th avenue, flanked by skyscrapers.
⋙ The carriage horse collapses in the New York heat
“Cruelty” and “Barbarism”
A video on social media shows the animal on the ground as angry motorists tell it to get up. A micro-demonstration against the “cruelty” of horse-drawn carriages then brought together 15 people.
American model Bella Hadid called these walks “barbarous” on Instagram. The fashion star urged the New York City Council to pass Holden’s bill.
For animal advocates, New York’s horses live in poor conditions, suffer from malnutrition and dehydration, are terrified of car traffic, and work hard. “They’re treated like machines and they’re not machines,” thunders Edita Birnkrant, director of an animal welfare group, NYCLASS, who thinks horse-drawn carriages have nothing to do in “a modern New York.”
Instead, operators ensure that these horses are well cared for and that their industry is closely monitored by city health authorities. In fact, they are forbidden to work more than nine hours a day, at more than 32 degrees in summer and less than 7 degrees in winter. The horses “are happy and healthy. You can’t force a 1,500-pound (680 kg) animal to do what it doesn’t want to,” insists Christina Hansen, a coachwoman in New York for a decade and whose Oreo horse is entitled to her five annual “holiday” weeks on the farm.
“Immoral” or “cultural”?
And then what would New York be without its horse-drawn carriages, this 42-year-old woman wonders: “They show us in the cinema and on TV. We are as photogenic as the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty“.
⋙ New York: the French community vibrates to the rhythm of Little Paris
In Central Park, where a 45-minute walk still costs $160, in one of the most expensive cities in the world, tourists are divided. “Absolutely immoral!”, exclaims the Englishwoman Cailey Tyler, in favor of the ban, as well as Maria Luzynska, a Pole for whom seeing horses “in the heat” gives New York “the worst impression”.
On the contrary, the Argentine Marina Perry sees in it “a cultural dimension that has been going on for generations”. Coach Christina Hansen explains that the industry is now “dominated by immigrants” from around 20 countries including Italy, Ireland, Turkey, Brazil and Mexico. A horse-drawn carriage driver can earn $100,000 a year, she says.
Conversely, supporters of Holden’s bill are hoping for a vote in October, wanting to take a ride on an “electric golf cart.”
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