Tradition or Cruelty?

Yet there are still anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 working carriage horses in the United States, and the industry, says Jay Baldwin, a veterinarian and certified equine cruelty investigator, is growing. New York's carriage drivers are considered a gateway to the city, tour guides who have recited its history for decades. Mostly Irish immigrants, the working-class carriage operators say the trade is their livelihood. At $34 a ride in an industry highly dependent on the weather—and without a fare hike since 1989—why would they do it if they didn't love it? "Once you have a horse in your heart, there's no getting it out," says McKeever, who owns eight horses, including Roger, all purchased in Pennsylvania Dutch country.

But there's no ignoring the tragic accidents that continue to occur. Nationwide, it's impossible to know how many work-related horse deaths have happened over the years; many aren't reported publicly, and carriage operators are wary of bad press. Whatever the number, animal advocates and medical professionals agree on one thing: an urban setting is not the place for horse-drawn carriages. "We're trying to keep alive a 19th-century conveyance in 21st-century Manhattan," says Holly Cheever, one of America's foremost equine veterinarians, who has worked since 1988 as the primary equine adviser for two states and 18 municipalities, including New York. "Horses are herbivores whose unique response to stress is to run their butts off. Because of that, in a split second you can have a horse go from being half asleep to being 1,200 pounds crashing through traffic."

Additionally, horses in an urban environment face unique challenges. Studies have shown that animals exposed to pollution have suffered emphysema, cancer and accelerated aging, and horses, with their nostrils only about three feet above street level, truly live a "nose-to-tailpipe existence," says Cheever. Meanwhile, bitter cold and scorching hot weather on the East Coast can be and have been deadly. Many cities have weather-related mandates (in New York horses are supposed to be taken off the roads if temperatures reach above 90 or below 18 degrees Fahrenheit), but official weather readings are frequently an inaccurate reflection of the actual temperature on the streets. In summer, for example, the temperature of the asphalt on the street can be 50 degrees higher than a standard weather report, according to a Cornell University study, and humidity can add another dozen degrees on top of that—which can be made even worse by the box-in effect of streets flanked by high-rise buildings. In the winter the wind chill is another factor.

Then there are the hazards of working on city streets. One horse died when she stepped on a Manhattan manhole cover and was electrocuted. Another was killed after getting trapped between a bus and a car. In Michigan, a four-year-old boy died in 2001 when he fell out of a carriage and was run over after the horse was frightened by a passing car. A number of horses have died from heat exhaustion over the years. And just this past summer, in St. Petersburg, Russia, the five-year-old daughter of a local politician was killed when a car hit the back of the carriage the family was riding in and the little girl fell out. "It's only a matter of time before a person is killed here [in New York]," says Elizabeth Forel, the president of the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages.

For New Yorkers the debate is unlikely to end soon—or, as morbid as it sounds, perhaps until that does happen. The fight to ban these carriages goes back decades, and the industry is tangled in a web of political and economic interests. But the news isn't all bad. Baldwin, who conducts inspections for the city as a contractor, says the horses' working conditions are, for the most part, "better today than they've ever been"—a result of public scrutiny and the efforts of the carriage drivers themselves. Of course, he adds, "there's always room for improvement."

© 2007