Horses Without Carriages International www.horseswithoutcarriages.org

More and more people around the globe are becoming sensitized to animal suffering and want it to stop. From cities legislating a ban on bull fighting or animal circuses to campaigns to ban inhumane horse-drawn carriages in Rome, Vienna, Chicago, Cozumel and Atlanta, to name a few, the time has come for animals to be given their due. To an enlightened populace, ethics, morality and compassion trump selfishness and greed every time. The New York City law allows these dispirited carriage horses to work for nine hours straight, seven days a week between the shafts of their carriage, either pulling or parked waiting for a customer-bored, captive, not even able to scratch an itch. As herd animals, horses need turnout to pasture to mingle with other horses, graze on grass and mutually groom each other, a great stress reliever. This does not exist in the New York City stables. The five-week so-called furloughs will never substitute for daily turnout. The horses live in four multistory stables on the far west side of Manhattan, where the stalls, legislated at 60 square feet minimum, are less than half the size experts recommend-stall guidelines for voluntary certification by the New York State Horse Health Assurance Program are 144 square feet for mid-sized horses and 196 square feet for larger drafts. These stalls are mostly on the upper levels, accessed by a steep ramp.

Since July 2011, there have been 11 carriage horse incidents, including one horse death, that of Charlie, who dropped dead on Oct. 23, 2011, while pulling a carriage. Several others were due to the horse spooking, but on Nov. 4 and again on Dec. 4, a horse collapsed on the street while pulling a carriage. There is no reporting requirement in the law, so it is probable that many more accidents occur and go undocumented. Every poll that has been taken since 2006-including those by CBS, The Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News and Extra-shows 75-80 percent of respondents favor a ban of the industry. Currently, we have over 122,000 signatures on an online petition in support of the Avella/Rosenthal state bill to ban the New York City carriage industry. While the people want a ban, politicians are a different matter. In 2009, the Teamsters began to represent the carriage drivers. It is not a real union shop; there is no collective bargaining or benefits, and owners and drivers are in one local. Only about half of the owners and drivers are members. But, as a strong union, the Teamsters wield much influence with City Council members who could otherwise make a difference.

The city has enabled this tiny business for years, granting such things as under-market rent for a city-owned stable, killing a Council bill that would have mandated sprinklers and quashing a bill that would have prevented the horses from going to slaughter auctions, the latter thanks to Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Currently, drivers are not accountable for horses sold outside New YorkCity, so it is not known where the majority of them go-a huge turnover of 60-70 horses each year. Our goal is to see the industry shut down and the horses retired to a sanctuary or a good home. It is time to move New York City into the 21st century with compassion for all beings. Elizabeth Forel is president of the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages.

Please support this bill by meeting with your Senator and Assemblymember this summer. If you are not able to do that, write them a snail mail letter - not e-mail. It is too easy to delete e-mail. Please make the extra effort to prepare a letter to both representatives and mail it.

• For your State Senator Click Here.
• For your Assemblymember Click Here.
• If you live outside NY State: Write a letter to Assemblyman Carl E. Heastie - chair of the Cities Committee in the Assembly . Click Here
• and Senator Andrew J. Lanza - chair of the Cities Committee in the Senate - Click here.
• You are potential tourists. Please let Assemblyman Heastie and Senator Lanza know that this is an issue of interest to many around the country.

Help us get more signatures and we will continue to let our state representatives know! This petition in support of the bill is one of many tools in our fight to end this business. So please sign if you have not done so already and forward it to others.

These are a few videos that were taken by HorsesInNYC in the last few days. The problem is that the ASPCA officers left the scene after they suspended the drivers. They should have stayed around for a while to assure that the drivers really did stop working. :

• Horse Abuse
• Carriages working after suspension and above 90 degrees
• Ignoring the Law
• Stumbling Horse

If you are on Facebook, please join these two pages.

• No Walk in the Park - -the official page of the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages
• Horses Without Carriages International - our international page.

In addition a longer version is on our blog - "What will happen to the horses if there is a ban? Won't they go to slaughter?"

A very telling comment was included today in the carriage drivers' diatribes directed at me about my op-ed. In defending all the inhumane things that the horses have to endure - such as sub standard stables, no turnout, etc., this person ended it by saying "AS IF THE HORSE CARES." Those five words say it all. These people do not consider a horse to have feelings, preferences or instincts that need to be acknowledged. To them, they are beasts of burden first and foremost.

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.