...This would oblige the mayor to back off his (false) claim that the carriage trade is inherently harmful to the horses...The politicking could get rough. The mayor reportedly plans to twist some arms...The Teamsters are going to defend the drivers...There are about 260 horses; at any one time, I’m told by Ian McKeever of Shamrock Stables, about 100 of them are on vacation on the farm. The rest of us should be so lucky. That the carriage horses are happy, well-fed and loved is evident to anyone who walks by the staging area on Central Park South. Which is why the whole controversy has, as McKeever puts it, “nothing to do with the horses.” The ASPCA would have us believe elsewise. Neither the city environment nor the law “provides horses with the fundamental necessities to ensure their safety and well-being,” it once wrote. Mind you, it was talking about an industry where regulations cover working hours, temperatures, stable conditions, safety equipment, licenses, health inspections, driver training, vaccinations, farrier care, feed quality and manure cleanup. One audit a few years back found the city Health Department files “showed that the department provided the required training program and examinations to drivers of horsedrawn carriages and maintained the Certificates of Health for the horses.” Neither the ASPCA inspector nor the city’s veterinarian consultant found “any serious violations regarding the health and safety of the horses when we accompanied them to the stables,” the report said. Opponents of the horses like to dramatize the accidents in which horses have been killed or dropped dead in the street. But one carriage supporter, actor Liam Neeson, has written that of an estimated 6 million trips in traffic over the past 30 years, only four horses have been killed in collisions with motor vehicles. Another horse was electrocuted when it stepped on an electrified manhole cover. Whose fault was that? When a human dies in an accident, no one tries outlaw people from working in the city... Cruelty to animals is a terrible thing — particularly when it involves sentient beings such as horses. The ASPCA’s founder, Henry Bergh, was stirred into his heroic work when he sprang to defend a cart-horse being beaten by his driver. But nothing remotely even like that is going on with today’s horses. Indeed, the carriage drivers care more for the horses than the city does. For years they’ve sought water spigots and better drainage along 59th Street. It’s the city that has been laggard... (Full article in the link below...)
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 01:25:23 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015