{"id":262219,"date":"2026-06-10T18:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T18:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/262219\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T18:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T18:57:10","slug":"nyc-lawmakers-revive-ryders-law-to-ban-horse-carriage-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/262219\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC lawmakers revive Ryder\u2019s Law to ban horse carriage industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

A carriage horse died after collapsing in Central Park on Tuesday night \u2014 an incident that came right as city lawmakers are reviving their crusade to ban the horse carriage industry.\n<\/p>\n

They added that Deniz, a 16-year-old male horse, suffered from an unspecified medical episode. But they said there was \u201cno criminality\u201d involved and that cops are still investigating.\n<\/p>\n

Deniz was pulling two passengers at the time of his collapse; neither one was injured, according to police.\n<\/p>\n

A video posted on social media by NYCLASS<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

The incident comes after a carriage horse fell over last month<\/a>. It also followed a separate snafu in January,<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Nurettin Kirbiyik, Deniz\u2019s owner and caretaker, said he was devastated in a statement shared by TWU Local 100 \u2014 the transit workers union which also represents the horse carriage drivers.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI really feel like I lost someone in the family,\u201d Kirbiyik said. \u201cHe was a beautiful horse. The best. Very friendly with kids. Everyone loved him and wanted to take pictures with him.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The union said that the Hell\u2019s Kitchen stables, where the horses are housed, were closed on Wednesday to honor Deniz.\n<\/p>\n

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

The union said that Deniz was found fit when he was last checked by the NYPD Mounted Unit\u2019s veterinarian in March. He will undergo a necropsy at Cornell University\u2019s College of Veterinary Medicine to determine the cause of his death.<\/p>\n

Renewed calls for end to horse carriage industry in NYC<\/p>\n

While TWU chalked Deniz\u2019s death up to a \u201ccatastrophic and sudden health incident,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

City Council Member Christopher Marte (D-Manhattan) \u2014 who is re-introducing Ryder\u2019s Law<\/a> to ban carriage horses, which has failed to make it over the finish line in years past\u2014 rallied with other city lawmakers and advocates opposed to the industry on the City Hall steps on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\"\"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<\/p>\n

Marte framed Deniz\u2019s death as part of a string of several recent dangerous incidents involving carriage horses.<\/p>\n

\u201cA horse collapsed, and in 10 minutes, passed away,\u201d Marte said of Deniz. \u201cThis isn\u2019t some random act. This isn\u2019t some outlier. Literally, we\u2019ve been seeing this type of action almost every other week, whether it\u2019s a horse dying, a horse collapsing, a horse running away and the passenger or the driver falling to the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryder\u2019s Law aims to \u201cwind down\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

In response, TWU Local 100 Vice President Alexander Kemp pushed back on Marte\u2019s characterization of the industry.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe strongly disagree with Councilman Marte\u2019s premise that carriage horses are mistreated and need to be banned and evicted from their homes,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

Marte also claimed the city can phase out the horse carriage industry while protecting carriage drivers\u2019 jobs. Past plans for outlawing horse carriages included replacing them with replica, electric-powered antique vehicles.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure that the workers aren\u2019t going out of work, that they have the support in finding new jobs,\u201d Marte said. \u201cJobs with dignity, jobs with good salaries, jobs with good pension and health care, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do with Ryder\u2019s Law.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Kemp charged that Marte has said little about exactly how his bill would support out-of-work carriage drivers.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 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\u2019s Law would financially ruin, nor a realistic plan for caring for almost 200 horses for the rest of their lives,\u201d Kemp said.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Law.<\/p>\n

\u201cI support removing horse carriages from Central Park. I\u2019ve 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\u2019m one of them,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cI think in Central Park, what we\u2019ve 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A carriage horse died after collapsing in Central Park on Tuesday night \u2014 an incident that came right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[101801,101802,4709,101803,101804,9,56,63,65,64,20946,8823,8824],"class_list":["post-262219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-alexander-kemp","tag-carriage-horse-industry","tag-central-park","tag-city-council-member-chrisopher-marte","tag-deniz","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-nyclass","tag-ryders-law","tag-twu-local-100"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}