Public Voices for the New York City Carriage Horses

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**Carriage horses are very stable (June 14, 2014: New York Daily News)**

Virginia Beach, Va.: I’m a former horse carriage driver who drove professionally for nine months in Boston, and I’ve worked with other equestrian disciplines for the last 20 years. Now I work with one of the country’s largest therapeutic horseback riding centers in Virginia. I wanted to find out more about the NYC carriage horses, so last weekend I went to New York and attended ClipClopNYC 2014, an educational and fundraising event highlighting Clinton Park Stables. As a horse person, I found the stables to be far beyond what I had imagined. They were clean, well lit, airy and comfortable. The horses were happily munching high quality hay and drinking from automatic waterers. I didn’t see a fly in the entire facility, and was hard-pressed to find one piece of manure. Many of the horses were lying down in their stalls napping on thickly bedded straw, while others were begging for carrots from the folks passing through. The stables are open to the public daily, no reservation needed. Anyone may tour the stables and get an up-close and personal look at the living quarters of these horses. There are 144 pages of regulations protecting the horses. These laws mandate stall size, temperature in which the horses may work, city zone restrictions (horses must operate in the park 95% of the day), brakes on carriages, nine-hour work days with mandatory breaks, five weeks vacation and four veterinarian checkups a year. In 2010 there was an industry-driven bill, passed by the City Council, where the industry asked for more regulations! These horses are the most visible and the most regulated horses in the country. To say they are mistreated, abused or overworked is a huge misunderstanding. These horses are stable (pun intended) animals, who are happy and extremely healthy. They are very physically fit. That’s more than I can say for a lot of humans. Libby Colón