A horse-drawn carriage in Central Park toppled onto its side on Monday, leaving its driver with minor injuries, after a horse attached to a carriage behind it was startled, the Police Department said.
The incident was the latest involving New York City’s horse-drawn carriages, which have become the subject of a long-running political debate over animal welfare, public safety and jobs.
It happened shortly before 4 p.m. when the two carriages were parked, one behind the other, inside the park near its southwest corner at West 59th Street, the Police Department said.
Troy, the horse attached to the second carriage, was startled by what the police described as an abrupt movement and reared, knocking the first carriage onto its side. It was unclear what movement caused the horse to react, the department said.
The first carriage’s coachman fell onto the ground and was treated for minor injuries, according to the department. Neither horse was hurt, and no passengers were in either carriage at the time of the incident.
Animal-rights advocates have pointed to a series of accidents in arguing that the city should ban its horse-drawn carriages, a longtime Central Park fixture. The Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents the city’s more than 200 carriage drivers, has opposed a ban, saying it would threaten their livelihoods.
The Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit that operates the park, has supported a City Council bill introduced in 2024 that would ban the carriages. The measure was named Ryder’s Law after a horse collapsed in Midtown Manhattan in 2022.
A spokesperson for the conservancy said the incident was “a stark reminder of the dangers that horse-drawn carriages pose in an increasingly crowded Central Park — not only to the Park’s millions of visitors, but very often to the drivers themselves.” It renewed its call to ban carriages in the park.
In August, Betsy Smith, the conservancy’s president, asked city officials to ban the carriages, saying they had become a public health and safety issue as the park’s visitor numbers reached record levels. Days earlier, a horse named Lady collapsed and died at a Manhattan intersection.
In January, a horse named Destiny ran through Manhattan traffic with its empty carriage and no driver, crashing into cars before a bystander grabbed its reins.
The Transport Workers Union Local 100 said in a statement that the carriage horses “are a popular attraction, part of what makes the Central Park so special, and are an important source of jobs for an overwhelmingly immigrant group of New Yorkers.”
“The stables are on valuable property that real estate interests would love to see vacant so they can be snatched up to build expensive high-rises,” the statement said. “This so-called debate has always at its core been about real estate, not animal welfare.”
In a news briefing in December, before he was sworn in as mayor, Zohran Mamdani said that he supported removing horse carriages from Central Park and that he would work with the transport union on the issue.
Victor Mather contributed reporting.