Horses Without Carriages International www.horseswithoutcarriages.org

Please check out our invitation here. If you buy your ticket by April 11th - next Wednesday, it is only $35 and includes two free raffle tickets. After that, it will be $45 until the day of the fund raiser when it goes up to $50 at the door so please support this cause now.

Maria Milito, from radio station Q104.3, will be our host. Some of you may know her as a frequent guest host on NY1's The Call. Senator Tony Avella and Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal will be on hand to talk about their bill in Albany to ban horse-drawn carriages. Entertainment will be provided by singers Joy Askew, Brian Gari and Deborah Thomas -- all different - and all terrific. More planning is in the works - stay tuned.

IMPORTANT: If you are planning to attend Lobby Day -- and are not going by the LoHV bus, please click on the LOHV link above, and then click on "no thanks, I'll make my own arrangements" and enter your contact information so LoHV can determine who your legislators are and be able to contact and coordinate with you the day of the event. (picture-J. Donato)

Ed. Note: The picture here is of Paddy, the horse that is being "retired" by the carriage trade. Retiring one token horse is a joke -- particularly since the turnover of NYC carriage horses is over 1/3 yearly -- and there is no accountability. Paddy is a draft breed -- a large horse. It is very apparent that the stall in which he is lying is not big enough for him. Sure he can lie down, but he cannot stretch his legs out. Experts recommend at least a 12 x 12 stall to permit a horse to lie down in lateral recumbency - i.e. with his legs fully extended. REM sleep, which is so essential to a horse only occurs when the horse is recumbent. Carriage horse industry sympathizers will call me a liar and other choice words, while defending their small stalls. The truth is that they simply do not have the space to accommodate the horses humanely. These stalls look to be about 80 sq. ft. The law calls for a minimum of only 60 sq. ft, which means that this is exactly what most of the stables have. Picture source.

While the NYC carriage horse trade is highly regulated, it is a travesty since many of the regulations are not sufficient. But most important is that they are not adequately enforced. The 14 Humane Law Officers from the ASPCA are not always on the job since they have other responsibilities. From my experience, the NYPD is not familiar with the law and turn their back on an overloaded carriage or one that is making a u-turn. This is common. The same is true with inspectors from the DoH and DCA. They have other responsibilities.

The fact that any of these violations were actually caught is a miracle.

• Department of Consumer Affairs violations
• 311 complaint calls

There are also horses who collapse or become entangled in carriages and harnesses. Sometimes they collapse for no apparent reason, like Charlie, who collapsed and died on the street in October. His death is still unexplained. A noisy, congested city is no place for horse-drawn carriages. These horses suffer day-in and day-out, from pulling carriages in all manner of weather extremes, to their dark and lonely nights spent in the barren warehouses where they return at the end of their nine hour days. By law, they can work seven days a week. You can help by speaking out against the cruel carriage horse industry in NYC. Go to the IDA link above and take action. (picture-J. Donato)

On I-Give - the name of our organization is "The Coalition for NYC Animals, Inc. ." We also have three stores on Cafe Press with great t-shirts, bags, hats, mugs, mouse pads, etc. . Purchasing this merchandise helps our organization. Click here.