The images of the animal, manhandled by its owner when it had just collapsed on the road, shocked social networks. The New York police intervened to refresh him.
In New York, the debate for the prohibition of tourist carriages is revived. Wednesday August 10, under a temperature of 30 degrees, a 14-year-old horse named Ryder collapsed in the streets of the American megalopolis. The scene, filmed and massively relayed on social networks, shocked many Americans and Internet users.
It all starts when the horse, attached to a carriage, collapses on the road in the Hell’s Kitchen district of Manhattan. The driver of the vehicle gets out, and tries to straighten the animal. He shakes his reins energetically, and shouts “Stand up! Stand up!”. But faced with the discomfort of Ryder, who is unable to recover, the driver is forced to leave him on the road.
Ice cubes and a jet of water to refresh it
The New York police are contacted. Arrived on the spot, the police began to water the horse with the help of a hose, and also gave him ice, thinking that his discomfort was due to the scorching temperatures. A large crowd gathers around the scene, and some residents do not hide their amazement at the presence of this animal in the middle of a city as noisy and agitated as New York.
Nearly an hour after his fall, Ryder finally got up, to the cheers of onlookers. He will finally be transferred to a private stable, and examined by a veterinarian. He announced that the animal was probably suffering from equine protozoan myeloencephalitis, a neurological infection that can cause animals to become unbalanced.
“It was not the heat, it was not the fatigue, it was not an overload of work”, defended in the columns of Metro Pete Donohue, a spokesperson for the union representing New York horse-drawn carriage carriers.
“Horses have no place in big cities”
For him, by becoming a carriage horse in New York, Ryder would have even accessed better living conditions. He used to work on an Amish farm, where he was asked to walk 50 km a day.
“If he wasn’t in the carriage industry, he could be dead by now,” Pete Donohue said.
Explanations that have not convinced supporters of a ban on this tourist practice in the streets of New York, already scalded by several similar incidents. On NBC New YorkEdita Birnkrant, deputy director of NYCLASS, an organization that campaigns for the end of horse-drawn carriages, said: “We call on the City Council, on the mayor, to ban this sickening animal abuse”.
PETA, an animal rights organization, for its part estimated on Twitter that “horses have no place in big cities where they are constantly in danger because of cars, men or even the weather”.
