A carriage horse died after collapsing in Central Park on Tuesday night — an incident that came right as city lawmakers are reviving their crusade to ban the horse carriage industry.

They added that Deniz, a 16-year-old male horse, suffered from an unspecified medical episode. But they said there was “no criminality” involved and that cops are still investigating.

Deniz was pulling two passengers at the time of his collapse; neither one was injured, according to police.

A video posted on social media by NYCLASS, a group focused on banning horse-drawn carriages in the park, shows Deniz lying motionless on the road with a crowd of onlookers gathered around.

The incident comes after a carriage horse fell over last month. It also followed a separate snafu in January, when a horse bolted into oncoming traffic on Sixth Avenue just south of the park. However, neither the horse nor any people were injured in either incidents.

Nurettin Kirbiyik, Deniz’s owner and caretaker, said he was devastated in a statement shared by TWU Local 100 — the transit workers union which also represents the horse carriage drivers.

“I really feel like I lost someone in the family,” Kirbiyik said. “He was a beautiful horse. The best. Very friendly with kids. Everyone loved him and wanted to take pictures with him.”

The union said that the Hell’s Kitchen stables, where the horses are housed, were closed on Wednesday to honor Deniz.

Kirbiyik said there were no signs on Tuesday that Deniz was unwell, as the horse was eating, drinking, and acting normally, according to TWU.

The union said that Deniz was found fit when he was last checked by the NYPD Mounted Unit’s veterinarian in March. He will undergo a necropsy at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine to determine the cause of his death.

Renewed calls for end to horse carriage industry in NYC

While TWU chalked Deniz’s death up to a “catastrophic and sudden health incident,” those looking to ban carriage horses insisted it is further evidence in support of their cause. The industry has long been in the crosshairs of lawmakers and animal rights advocates who argue that it is inhumane and dangerous for carriage horses to continue operating on the streets of Manhattan.

City Council Member Christopher Marte (D-Manhattan) — who is re-introducing Ryder’s Law to ban carriage horses, which has failed to make it over the finish line in years past— rallied with other city lawmakers and advocates opposed to the industry on the City Hall steps on Wednesday.

Deniz, the carriage horse that collapsed and died in Central Park on Tuesday, June 9, 2026, and his driver, Nurettin Kirbiyik.Photo courtesy of TWU Local 100

Marte framed Deniz’s death as part of a string of several recent dangerous incidents involving carriage horses.

“A horse collapsed, and in 10 minutes, passed away,” Marte said of Deniz. “This isn’t some random act. This isn’t some outlier. Literally, we’ve been seeing this type of action almost every other week, whether it’s a horse dying, a horse collapsing, a horse running away and the passenger or the driver falling to the ground.”

Ryder’s Law aims to “wind down” the horse carriage industry by ending the issuance of new horse-drawn cab licenses and banning their operation. Marte plans to reintroduce the legislation, which he said has already garnered several co-sponsors, for the current City Council session on June 11.

In response, TWU Local 100 Vice President Alexander Kemp pushed back on Marte’s characterization of the industry.

“We strongly disagree with Councilman Marte’s premise that carriage horses are mistreated and need to be banned and evicted from their homes,” he said.

Marte also claimed the city can phase out the horse carriage industry while protecting carriage drivers’ jobs. Past plans for outlawing horse carriages included replacing them with replica, electric-powered antique vehicles. 

“We want to make sure that the workers aren’t going out of work, that they have the support in finding new jobs,” Marte said. “Jobs with dignity, jobs with good salaries, jobs with good pension and health care, and that’s what we’re going to do with Ryder’s Law.”

But Kemp charged that Marte has said little about exactly how his bill would support out-of-work carriage drivers.

“It’s also telling that he has not spoken in any real detail about providing economic support or a just transition for more than 150 carriage drivers and owners that Ryder’s Law would financially ruin, nor a realistic plan for caring for almost 200 horses for the rest of their lives,” Kemp said.

Meanwhile, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, during an unrelated Wednesday news conference, reaffirmed his campaign pledge to remove carriage horses from Central Park, but would not fully back Ryder’s Law.

“I support removing horse carriages from Central Park. I’ve also said that I look forward to working with union leaders to actually deliver on that, and I know that many New Yorkers were disturbed by what they saw yesterday, and I’m one of them,” Mamdani said. “I think in Central Park, what we’ve seen is a lot of concern about the welfare of these horses, and I want to find a way to get to the end of that path.”