A carriage horse died in Central Park on Tuesday evening, apparently after experiencing a medical episode and collapsing, the Police Department said.<\/p>\n
Although it was unclear what killed the horse, the death quickly added fuel to a long-running push by animal rights\u2019 activists<\/a> and others for New York City to ban the horse carriage trade.<\/p>\n On Thursday, Christopher Marte, a Democratic City Council member from Manhattan, plans to reintroduce a bill that would impose such a ban and that failed to win passage during the Council\u2019s previous term.<\/p>\n Mr. Marte, in a joint statement late Tuesday with Julie Cappiello, the president of Voters For Animal Rights, an advocacy group based in New York, said that the horse\u2019s death hours earlier underscored the need for the ban.<\/p>\n \u201cHorses are living beings who deserve dignity and compassion,\u201d Mr. Marte and Ms. Cappiello said in the statement. \u201cThey should not be forced to navigate the noise, traffic and demands of New York City streets.\u201d<\/p>\n Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents carriage drivers and stablehands, has fought even the hint of a ban fiercely for years, saying that it would kill jobs, that the horses are well cared for, and that carriage rides remain a popular attraction.<\/p>\n Christina Hansen, a carriage driver and spokeswoman for Local 100, identified the horse that died on Tuesday as a 16-year-old male named Deniz. She said that Deniz had worked in the city for about 10 years and had been pronounced fit during his most recent examination, in March, by the veterinarian for the Police Department\u2019s Mounted Unit.<\/p>\n Under the carriage trade\u2019s protocol, she said, Deniz would be taken to Cornell University\u2019s College of Veterinary Medicine for a full necropsy.<\/p>\n Deniz\u2019s death appeared to be the first of a carriage horse since last summer, when Lady, a 15-year-old mare that had worked in New York City for less than two months, collapsed and died at a Manhattan intersection<\/a> while returning to her stable. A necropsy found a thoracic aortic rupture and an adrenal tumor had caused the death, according to city health officials.<\/p>\n The bill Mr. Marte plans to introduce, Ryder\u2019s Law<\/a>, is named for a horse that collapsed<\/a> on a busy Hell\u2019s Kitchen street in 2022 and was later euthanized. Last July, a jury acquitted Ryder\u2019s driver<\/a> of an animal cruelty charge stemming from the horse\u2019s collapse.<\/p>\n New York\u2019s carriage industry included 68 licensed carriage owners, 183 licensed horses and 231 licensed drivers as of last August, city records showed. There were about 170 active drivers then, according to the union.<\/p>\n Rides cost $72.22 for the first 20 minutes and $28.89 for each additional 10 minutes under prices set by the city. Carriages may pick customers up and drop them off only at specific spots in the park, where they have been a fixture since the 19th century.<\/p>\n Supporters of a carriage horse ban gained a notable ally last summer when the Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit organization that runs the park, took a public stand<\/a> on their side \u2014 the first time the group had taken a position on the issue.<\/p>\n Eric Adams, toward the end of his term as mayor, also came out in favor of a ban<\/a>. Mayor Zohran Mamdani said<\/a> during last year\u2019s campaign that he favors eliminating horse carriages but wants to find a resolution that also suits the union.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A carriage horse died in Central Park on Tuesday evening, apparently after experiencing a medical episode and collapsing,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[21612,72891,31679,95561,1910,11634,101882,9,24,55,54,56,72885,97673,101881],"class_list":["post-262486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-carriages","tag-central-park-manhattan","tag-central-park-conservancy","tag-christopher","tag-city-council-nyc","tag-horses","tag-marte","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-parks-and-other-recreation-areas","tag-transit-workers-union","tag-veterinary-medicine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262486","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=262486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}