HAVE YOU BEEN BRAINWASHED BY THE MEDIA in the case of NYC's carriage horse trade?

HAVE YOU BEEN BRAINWASHED BY THE MEDIA

in the case of NYC's horse-drawn carriages?

Even if you give a resounding no – that you do think for yourself – I will bet that you've  been unduly influenced by the media – especially with this issue of “to ban or not to ban”;  - that you've believed what you heard simply because it came from an “authority” who said it on TV,  or you read it in the papers -- after all the printed word -- especially in a newspaper -   must always be correct. (not)

Since September when Bill deBlasio won the mayoral primary, there's been a media onslaught against the pending ban of horse-drawn carriages.   

The horse issue has become a metaphor for something else.       

It's  become unreasonably important and seems to represent deBlasio’s liberal policies, which are opposed by  most of the editorial boards. After all, this is the first time ever that NYC has had a progressive mayor.  Ever!    It's a way to beat him up and hopefully win.   It's  arm wrestling with the mayor of one of the biggest cities in the world. 

This is about power and influence – not about horses, drivers, animal activists or real estate tycoons. 

The editorial boards of the NY Times, NY Daily News, NY Post and Newsday/AM-NY are all against a ban of horse drawn carriages and are using their bully pulpit to make it known.  This is also true of Fox 5 News; CNN, some on NY-1;

PIX11; WABC.  Fox 5 in NYC is doing editorials against the ban.  The others just follow suit because they see it as a model of how to present  this issue. 

Many of them  - especially the News, Post and Am-NY have allowed their editorial philosophies to leak over into their news reporting.  Fiction and opinion become fact and there's no way for an observer to tell the difference.  It's  Yellow Journalism at its best and it's a fight for your soul.

The NY Times, Daily News and Post all endorsed Christine Quinn in the Democratic Primary.  She came in third.  If Quinn had won, people like conservative NY Daily News' owner Mort Zuckerman,  would have maintained his access (and influence) to City Hall.  This was a blow to all of them, especially the NY Times.  After all doesn’t everyone listen to and follow their choice of endorsements?  What an assault on their power and influence. 

So when the mayoral election came around – the Daily News, which had been attacking  deBlasio on a daily basis with exaggerated accusations about anything and everything, reluctantly joined the NY Times and endorsed deBlasio over Joe Lhota for mayor.  AM-NY and the NY Post endorsed Joe Lhota and they were furious that deBlasio won the election by a landslide of 70%. 

Since that time, all of these newspapers and TV news have portrayed the carriage drivers in a sympathetic light.  They never talk about the double shifting -- illegally working the horses more than the allowed nine hours a day; or lack of required breaks;  or all of the accidents over the years; or working the horses in all temperatures after the ASPCA officers suspended the trade for the day; or  how they are cash only and it's very questionable how much they contribute to the NYC tax base; or how there might be laws on the books, but they are mostly not enforced. 

No - they manipulate the facts and the target for these lies is you. 

Why is this relatively tiny group of people so powerful?  What hold do they have over politicians and media?  We have asked this many times as we saw over the years the puzzling extent of entitlements doled out representing the city's largess.  What is really going on here?  Everyone should be asking these questions?  Every unemployed person or group of people who has been ignored should be challenging why their jobless status is not important.  Every authentic union member should be challenging why this non-union shop - with owners and drivers in the same local - has the support of the Central Labor Council.  
 What is really going on here?   


The reporters go to the stables and hold a mike in front of a driver as he talks about the horse in the adjacent stall  – a horse who was most likely just groomed who has a shiny well brushed  coat.   They get a good shot of the largest stall they have, which was probably just cleaned and bedded.  The drivers only take reporters to  Clinton Stables - by appointment. 

The reporters – whether it is from PIX 11 or Diana Williams from Channel 7 who really should have known better – do not know the issue well enough to question it – the size of the stalls; the fact that there is no turn out to pasture; they listen as the driver tells them this is a land grab by the greedy real estate developers (code for antisemitism.) They think it's OK that the horses have a 5-week furlough - not understanding that they need daily turn out to pasture – and certainly not knowing that the Department of Health does not require the names of or inspections of these so-called farms where the horses go.  And the reporters end up posing with the horse and feeding him a carrot.  Job done.   

But the horses lose -- and your soul is that much closer to being theirs.  
 

This is very shabby reporting.  No intelligent, challenging questions.  Doesn't anyone know how to do an interview anymore?  What do they teach in journalism schools anyway?!

And to add insult to injury, the carriage trade and "media"  are aided by the Cavalry

September 2013 accident in NYC

Group, an anti-animal lobby group, working with the carriage trade.  They support the grossly inhumane puppy mills, horse slaughter and a weakening of animal cruelty laws around the country. 

Character Assassination:   another trick of media manipulation.   Reporters ask us to be interviewed only to say that they got “both sides” of the story but end up framing it so it is clearly on the side of the trade.  No one reports on the real reasons we want a ban – the inhumane conditions both working and living; the unsafe and dangerous environment.    We are all lumped into one pot - "radical animal rights activists" whose agenda is to get rid of all human interaction with animals.   No one addresses the fact that many horse owners and rescuers are with us on this issue and would not dream of allowing their precious horses to pull a carriage around NYC.  But you buy the argument because you saw it on television. 

Fear Mongering: a tried and proven tactic of media brain washing.   In late October 2013,  the Daily News ran a story about how the carriage horses were all going to slaughter if there were a ban.  Mayor Bloomberg sided with them.  Even though this was intelligently disputed by Vickery Eckoff in her piece in Forbes, which is not as widely read, the threat of the horses going to slaughter has stayed with us. 

  
People believe what they read.  

Oreo - spooked and bolted - running terrified for blocks

Of course no one wants to know that this is where many of the horses currently go as I wrote about last year  - Where Do All the NYC Carriage Horses Go?  or that this was indeed a ploy by the drivers to scare people into stopping ban talk to save the horses.  No one thought about it enough to realize that if the horses did go to the kill auctions, it was the drivers who brought them there.   

Although this detailed and well supported documented study was sent to the press - no one picked up the story.   Revealing that just perhaps many of the horses already go to the kill auctions would have interfered with the "accepted" story the media was trying to get out there  i.e, the drivers love their horses like their children. 

1/2006 accident - Spotty euthanized; driver in coma

Projection:    this is another tactic of brainwashing that the media puts forward.   The carriage trade will say that we lie, lie, lie.  They say it enough times and you will believe it.  But they are the ones who lie and distort the truth and their conduit to the world - the right wing media - will make sure these lies  get out there.  Read this blog from November 2012.  Lies and Desperation - the NYC carriage trade. 

The most recent example of an editorial gone amuck was in AM-NY on March 23-

"Horse-Drawn Carriages are park of NYC."   
 
Here is what they got to say in this piece unchallenged.        

·         AM-NY:  refers to the drivers as “hard working; a reminder of a gentler age and they should just keep clopping with dignity and elegance.”

·         MY RESPONSE:  I wonder if we are talking about the same city.  Take a look at this report in Irish Central  about a driver spewing homophobic and racist remarks
note:  the NY Post did not report on this incident. 
...and my blog from 2012 called A Fly on the Wall  - the Inner Working of the Brains of the NYC Carriage Drivers and their Supporters.  - a playbook for a pro carriage horse trade campaign. 

AM-NY:  "But the City Council in 2010 passed work rules that sound reasonable to us.  They call for five weeks of vacation a year in a place with green pasture and all you can eat."  

MY RESPONSE:  Horses need access to daily turnout and the term "vacation" is a human concept.  They are herd animals and need to socialize with members of their herd to mutually groom each other to relieve stress.   Instead for 47 weeks a year, they work 9 hours a day, 7 days a week between the shafts of their carriage not even able to scratch an itch.  The Department of health does not require the names of the places where these horses are sent; nor do they inspect them. It is thought by some that some of the owners provide them to the Amish to work their farms in exchange for a place to send the horses on furlough.  In November  2011, the former ASPCA vet, Pam Corey was quoted in a NY Post article as saying that “We have observed some horses returning to New York City after furloughs on a farm in worse condition than when they left.”   

 

·        AM-NY - "Their stalls must be at least 80 square feet."

·        MY RESPONSE:  This simply is not true.  This is the law: 
“§  17–330  Regulations.  Standing stalls for carriage horses shall be sixty square feet or larger, with a minimum width of seven feet.”  Experts recommend stall sizes of 12 x

60 sq. ft. legal stall - very small w/little bedding

12 – 144 square feet for a standardbred horse and 14 x 14 – 196 square feet for a draft breed.  So these 60 square foot stalls are less than half of what experts recommend -- and that is a stall big enough for a horse to lie down with his limbs extended to their fullest. 

·        AM-NY:   “there is the prospect of  300-plus drivers who could lose their jobs.” 

·        MY RESPONSE:  According to the industry itself, about 150-160 drivers are full time.   The rest are both part time and live outside the city.  One driver manages his medallions from  Sicily.   

 

Charlie - October 2011  - dropped dead in street

ACCURATE REPORTING:  A real democracy demands a free press and access to accurate, quality information that is well researched and fact checked. 

We have not been getting it.  The yellow journalism that we have experienced with this issue has been extremely revealing.  No one challenges these gross misrepresentations presented as truths– from lying about the stall size; to what the so-called 5-week vacations really represent; to how the horses are treated; to the number of people in the industry.    

All these lies are accepted by what passes for the media in this town and they expect you to believe it.  Little research and no fact checking. 

POLL:  So when Quinnipiac does a poll in this environment and it results in more than 60% of people against a ban, it does not surprise me at all.  I am just very disappointed in the people who are so easily led that they will believe anything.  Since 2006, every poll taken had resulted in between 75 and 80% of respondents in favor of a ban.   

The only way this could have changed is with media manipulation.   I do not buy it for a minute and neither should you. 
Swiftboating:  Unfortunately, while we greatly appreciate Mayor deBlasio's promise to ban this inhumane business and he has not appeared to falter - he also has not helped the issue.  When I've mentioned this media bias to contacts in the media, they have agreed but also say that they mayor has not helped himself.  He has not owned the issue and has handled it in a dismissive way.  He is being swiftboated - just as John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election was when he allowed the media to slam him.  

Sometimes taking what you believe is the high road is very harmful. 

Can't Get the Truth Out:  We have not been able to get our story out there.  I now cringe when I get a call from a reporter who wants to interview me and I have turned some down.  They are only doing it because they still – at least on paper – adhere to the rules of journalism, which is to interview both sides.  But they are not fact checking and they set up the story with a slant - -against us.  I have personally experienced this many times.

I have also experienced being lied to by PIX11 after they invited me to an interview with a driver and then canceled it telling me they could not get someone from the other side.  Instead they did an exclusive one on one with a driver at Clinton Stables.  I also turned down an interview with a NY 1 reporter because I knew he was on the drivers' side and was retweeting and supporting all of their comments. 
 
The editorial boards and the right wing media want to win this argument because of all it represents.  They want to deBlasio to cry uncle.  Everyone who supports progressive issues - whatever they are - should stand with us on this one because if this crumbles in defeat, it will affect the administration going forward.

I am hoping that Mayor deBlasio continues to stand strong and does the right thing – and that he and his staff understand the source of this present climate.  This business needs to be shut down by the end of the year in total.  It must not be a phase out because that simply will not work for many reasons. 

It is grossly inhumane and unsafe.  NYC has managed to bite the bullet when we have had spooking accidents.  But it is only a matter of time before a person is seriously injured or killed as has happened in other communities. 

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Note:  to all reporters and journalists who try their best to get the facts right and not be influenced by what they have to know is ongoing - the reporters who actually do extensive research and fact checking -- the ones who take their responsibility seriously.  You are few and far between but I do appreciate you.  And you know who you are. 

THE UNQUESTIONABLE RIGHT TO BE

 guest blog by Missy Painter...

The Unquestionable Right To Be    

When exploring the issue of animal rights, the first major obstacle we often encounter is our own deeply ingrained conditioning.  It's daunting to examine what we've always done and known  - to challenge and question the ways in which we all, often blindly, justify our existence through thoughtless patterns and familiar behaviors and choices.  But in order to move forward consciously when it comes to animal rights this is exactly what we need to do.  

We have been using animals for food, entertainment and labor for millennia. It's not new.  It's tradition, in fact.  And, as with most traditions,  it is widely accepted.  But what if animals are on the planet for their own reasons?  What if, like humans, animals have their own communities and deep connections with their own kind for their own purposes and reasons?  What if animals are not here for us?  This may seem rudimentary, but is in fact a fairly foreign idea to most people.    

 
We are so accustomed to using animals in almost every facet of our lives that we have forgotten a simple truth:  that we all exist for our own purposes. 

But don't animals "need" us?  Aren't they "bred for human use"?  Yes and no.  Humans and non-humans are essential to one another in that together we all create a balance of ecology, an essential web of life.  But for

NYC - working in the snow

one species to manipulate another into an unfair and unbalanced partnership at the expense of the other's freedom? No … that is called slavery.  We shudder now at the thought of the torture and devastation caused to humans enslaved years ago and all agree this was an atrocity beyond belief.  But in our relationships with animals we are still very much in owner/slave mentality.  We mostly never question the act of taking an animal from his natural environment and exploiting him for our purposes. 

What about the controversy concerning NYC’s carriage horses?   I don't think the issue is that the horses are not loved or cared for -- well at least some of them, anyway --  but it's more that horses do not belong in a city environment working for The Man.   These horses are not able to choose. They are herd animals and belong with other horses, not pulling carriages.  It's arrogance that takes them from their proper and natural environment to be used for human greed. It's wrong.  The very nature of putting blinders on a horse, depriving him of his ability to see well …. a sensory perception we all have and are all entitled to use  -- or should be! ... then it's probably a very bad idea to do this.

Salt Lake City

Recent research in animal sentience is showing, overwhelmingly, that animals do think, feel, care, and experience joy and sadness very much like humans do.  In fact, we are learning that animals grieve over the loss of their companions and form very strong bonds with one another.  In light of this we have an obligation now to allow them the right to their own lives, and to begin the process of making that happen by releasing them from these existences we have forced upon them and allow them to return to where they came from...  to their respective herds and pods and colonies and flocks.

Humanity is waking up.  We are evolving in our capacity for compassion.  And as this unfolds we need to face the fact that we have done a great disservice to other beings on earth.  What was once the unchallenged and traditional use of animals is up for discussion and debate... and in many cases it's up for abolition. 

But this is not a message about persecution or judgment. This is

about awakening and awareness and right action, and an obligation to extend living rights to those who exist with us on the planet... those very same rights we demand for ourselves. 

The right to exist and live a life free of exploitation and slavery.

The unquestionable right to be.

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Enjoying the good life at Central New England Equine Rescue

NYC CARRIAGE HORSES, LAND GRAB, ANTISEMITISM AND LIES

NYC CARRIAGE HORSES, LAND GRAB, 
ANTISEMITISM AND LIES

are the carriage drivers using subtle ethnic slurs and  
stereotypes  to gain support?  

The carriage drivers lie  ... a lot.  They make things up as they go along to fit the circumstances.  They stay up late at night thinking of new whoppers.  I wrote a blog about this called Lies and Desperation - the NYC Carriage Trade.  

But the BIG LIE that has been spread unchallenged in the media is this:  The real reason there is a campaign to shut down the horse-drawn carriage trade is because a certain real estate developer wants the stable land.   The media has been very sloppy in not doing their own research, taking these accusations as gospel and running with them.   They like this story and seem only too happy to perpetuate this fairy tale.  

Accident Sept. 25, 2013

This  real estate myth is not true and is a diversion made up by the carriage drivers to build sympathy for their cause so people would not look into their shoddy abusive business. 

Everyone loves to hate real estate developers – right?  They are greedy, perceived to have too much money; put up buildings that are too big,  and ruin neighborhoods.  They are the perfect villains.  And many also happen to be Jewish.  

Some of the language being used by the carriage drivers and their cronies is Code for discriminatory Anti-Semitic slurs.  They get to express their intolerant views about Jews without being accused of antisemitism.   And they get commiseration from the gullible public.   

 I am shocked that the media has allowed this disgrace to continue and that more Jews have not recognized this for exactly what it is and stood up to be counted.  Every fair-minded and socially conscious person should condemn these actions.   But I get it that people often do not like to acknowledge that prejudice and discrimination exist.  

What better fairy tale to create than to blame the campaign for a ban of horse-drawn carriages on a wealthy real estate developer … a bad guy.  A Goliath compared to a David – the “poor working-class drivers.”  The fact that he happens to be Jewish is just icing on the cake for them.  And the fact that many of them are hardly poor working-class is beside their point. 

As if  … our interest in shutting down this inhumane and unsafe trade could ever have anything  

to do with the fact that we are tired of all the horse spooking accidents, horse deaths, inhumane

living and working conditions; drivers constantly flouting the law in a business that has little actual oversight; horses going to auction and then on to slaughter in Canada and Mexico; horses slaving  for 9 hours a day 7 days a week and then going on 5-week furloughs only to return looking worse.  And we are tired of the City being held hostage by this tiny well-connected group of people.  What about all the others who have lost jobs over the years?    Who is crying for them?  What about all the obsolete businesses that were forced to close because they lost any real viability?

Nah – could not be that.  Must be because of this all powerful real estate developer, Steve Nislick, who apparently has Mayor deBlasio wrapped around his little finger.  But he did not donate any more to deBlasio than the legal amount allowed.  Many people did that.

These are some of the comments below that have been published for some time now in the media.  Because they were not challenged, they have gotten legs of their own. People want to believe in the bogeyman – the Goliath (Jewish) real estate developer.  But really -   why would anyone in his right mind lust after this stable property for five years – property that is not contiguous – on rather small lots.  If Nislick were interested in this area, he could have purchased other property that was available.  The owners would not have to sell it to him.  It does not make sense. 

The development of this area, which is called Hudson Yards,  has actually been going on for more than ten years.  The area extends from W. 28^th St. on the south to W.43^rd St. on the north and from Seventh and Eighth Avenues on the east to the Hudson River.    It  includes the land on which the stables on 37^th and 38^th St  are built  – but not the ones north of that.  So eventually these stable owners will be forced out of their businesses to make way for development that is good for the City as a whole.  

Stable on W. 38th St.

Stable on W. 37th St. 

Stall at the W. 38th St. stable (very small, hardly any bedding, horse has harness rubs) 

Although I believe Nislick should have spoken out much sooner, he recently did and his comments are on their web site. 
”I’ve never been interested in these properties and do not want them now. These are private stables, under private ownership by entities who can keep them or sell them as they see fit.  But I will not bid on any property if it is put up for sale, nor will anyone else in our organization. Our sole interest is in the health and safety of the horses.”

These are some excerpts from articles in the media: 

Lee Siegel in NY Magazine

And where does one put in the political landscape, the carriage industry’s accusation that the animal-rights people are using the issue to hand the Hudson Yards stables to real –estate developers (who could surely find the money to buy them honestly)?

When talking to the well-educated, often Jewish liberals who make up the animal-rights movement in New York, and to the Irish-American hard cases like Byrne-28 years driving a carriage so that he could afford to raise his daughters in Caldwell, New Jersey, and send them to Montclair Kimberly Academy – you can feel that you are I a Sidney Lumet film. 

USA Today

The drivers contend that NY Class is a cover for developers who have their eye on the property that stables take up along the City’s West Side. 

NY Daily News via Liam Neeson

“Neeson also speculated that real estate developers are pushing the ban to snatch up valuable real estate currently occupied by stables, currently located on Manhattan's far west side.”

“History teaches us that land grabs can manifest themselves in various ways. We all know the land on which these four stables sit is most valuable. Please do not become complicit in this type of practice,” Neeson wrote.”

And from that strangely right wing Front Page :

“The man behind the Anti-Horse Jihad is Steve Nislick, a real-estate tycoon with an eye on their stables, , and a hand in Bill de Blasio’s greasy pocket.”

Mike Vogel from AM-NY

“But carriage-horse owners say that what's really behind the push to get rid of the Central Park carriage horses are developers who are perhaps looking to turn the stable properties into condos. According to Crain's New York, Steve Nislick, developer and founder of anti-carriage-horse group New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets, is a big de Blasio contributor.

Emily Hager – NY Times

Besides the animal rights campaigners, the industry is facing a classic New York peril: rising real estate values. Developers covet the stables on the Far West Side where the horses have long been kept.

Gothamist – comments by driver

 … got a group of people who are being fed nonsense. The guy who's funding all this is a real estate guy. His name is [Steve Nislick, co-founder an president of NYCLASS]. He's interested in buying the land. The stables are located right by the Javits Center and they want to put hotels up in there.

Change.org petition to the City Council

please do not bow to the new mayor's pressure and ban the beloved iconic New York City Central Park horse carriages. Our mayor has said his first priority is to pay back his campaign's billionaire real estate donor Steve Nilsick (the man behind NYCLASS & their well-funded push for the ban) with the valuable Westside stables properties. This is completely unacceptable & a great disappointment. All oversight agencies have no evidence of abuse. These are union jobs that would be destroyed and these horses would be sent to slaughter. They are some of the most well-cared for horses in the world & the only chance for many nyc children get to see these special creatures so please stop the mayor from taking them away.

The drivers are always looking to divert people’s attention away from the inhumane and unsafe conditions in the carriage business to something else -- be it police horses, horse racing, dressage -- but none of these hoped for diversions took hold.   With their contrived Irish brogues, they were quick to say that we are anti-Irish.  Wrong again.    We not only work with two Irish animal rights groups in Dublin, but we also have Irish Immigrants and Irish-American activists working in our campaign – along with people representing a diverse group of ethnic, racial, secular and religious backgrounds.  I am first generation Irish on my mother’s side – more Irish than many of the drivers.  So that charge simply did not work.  Besides the “greedy real estate developer” story was much better. 

So I hope you get the picture.  This is not so surprising when one considers what happened in July 2012 when a driver went off on a group of demonstrators.  Then it was much more blatant.  He was heard making anti-gay, anti-black and anti-women comments, which were taped.   

We are not on the same page as NY Class.  We  - Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages - are a grass roots animal advocacy organization that started the ban campaign in 2006.  We have contributed much substance to this campaign in the way of research, reports and articles.  We do not support the electric cars as an alternative industry because they are too risky, expensive and do not exist.  The logistics behind setting them up in a phase out is so badly conceived that they are not only guaranteed to fail, they would guarantee that there will be no ban.

I have always said that a ban of the horse-drawn carriage trade should not be dependent on the success of an untried and risky business such as this.    This is not what any of us heard when we voted for Mayor deBlasio who clearly said it would happen soon.   We hope he keeps his promise and does not get caught up in this electric car nonsense.

The business needs to be shut down with no strings attached.

If jobs are an important issue to this campaign then the best thing is the retrofitted horse-carriage – sans horse.  It is a fraction of the cost of the electric cars and is available.  And the changeover could happen in a short period of time.  The work to convert the carriages  could be done local. 

Please everyone – let’s have some honesty with this issue.  Stop taking the word of the drivers as gospel.  It does not reflect well on any reporter who puts their name to these stories.  

 

The mayoral administration must be strong enough to say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!   They need to say that this  business will be shut down and the drivers either take this job offer – retrofitted  carriages – or find something else ... that we will no longer be manipulated by this entitled business that has gotten perks for years.  

These are two links to the Hudson Yards project.  It is huge project; it is the future and it is happening - and the horse carriage ban has nothing to do with it.   

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/hyards/hymain.shtml  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Yards_Redevelopment_Project

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WORKING TO BAN HORSE-DRAWN CARRIAGES - two recent articles

NYC carriage horse "parked" over steam vent on 1/27/14 - photo by Mary Culpepper

These are excerpts from  two recent pieces - one an interview by Nicole M. Arcielo of the Times Union in which she gave me an opportunity to get the truth out.  The other was a blog on Vegan Publisher blog.  There is a link to both sites where you can read the entire articles.

WORKING TO BAN HORSE-DRAWN CARRIAGES

an interview by the Times Union

I was interviewed by Nicole M. Arcielo of the Times Union -Working to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages. This is an excerpt:

A driver was charged with animal cruelty recently. Has this ever happened before? Will it help pave the way for the ban? This is the first time someone was caught. It was an NYPD officer who made the arrest and it is probably because they took over enforcing the cruelty laws on January 1st. The officer was probably more sensitive to the suffering. It is odd that only the NY Times reported on this cruelty arrest.

While on paper it looks like the trade is heavily regulated by many City agencies, these regulations are mostly not enforced. The ASPCA officers - fewer than 20 - handled the whole state. They would have had to assign one officer to each driver to keep up with them and that was never going to happen. But I wonder why no one else noticed this lame horse for four days - not the stable manager, not the owner and not the many drivers who work out of Clinton Stable. That is shameful and just confirms to me that they don't care and see these horses as objects, as money makers. I also wonder about the stall in which Blondie lived. A very common cause of thrush, which was the cause of the lameness, is filthy urine soaked straw bedding.nose to carriage (2) Here are videos of violations activists have amassed. Even though these have been turned over to the Department of Health and Consumer Affairs, nothing is generally done about any of this. Perhaps it was because Agency Commissioners are appointed by the Mayor (Bloomberg in this case) and did not want to rock the boat since Bloomberg supported the industry. The ASPCA also never responded to these videos.

BAN OF THE HORSE-DRAWN CARRIAGE TRADE IN NY

by Elizabeth Forel - guest blogger on Vegan Publisher

Ban of the Horse-Drawn Carriage Trade in New York -- by Elizabeth Forel - guest blogger on Vegan Publishers. This is an excerpt: 

WHY THE BUSINESS NEEDS TO BE SHUT DOWN: These slow moving, flimsy conveyances do not belong in the heavy congested streets of NYC, which is always an accident waiting to happen. Horses are prey animals and are predictably unpredictable - they spook easily and can bolt into traffic causing mayhem. These sensitive animals become unwitting weapons who can kill or injure themselves or passersby. Human deaths have happened in other countries and if this business is allowed to continue, it is only a matter of time before someone is killed here.

The horses work nine hours a day, seven days a week between the shafts of their carriages where they do not have the freedom to scratch an itch - something everyone takes for granted. During the holiday season when the drivers are busy, the horses are worked to exhaustion - never resting. At other times of the year, when there is little business, they wait at the hack line bored, stomping their hooves until they get yelled at. The more fortunate ones just fall asleep. But they all have that disinterested faraway look as they stand dispirited while their drivers ignore them, often shooting the breeze with their cronies.


They live in multi-level drab and dark stables in upper floor stalls that are less than half the size of what experts recommend. They are accessed by a steep ramp. The horses have no turn out to pasture - no place to graze and socialize with the other horses. The stables have one means of egress and if there were a fire, the horses living on upper floors would not be able to get out. It is a tragedy waiting to happen.

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