Public Voices for the New York City Carriage Horses

Horse carriage foes rely on emotions (November 3, 2015: Staten Island Advance)

By Craig Sheldon
Manhattan

When I saw that Ms. Barizone submitted a response to my letter, I was excited that finally we could get down to the actual facts. You may remember my original letter set out three fundamental facts (shorthanded here): 1. 64 percent of voters are against a carriage horse ban; 2. the ban bill doesn’t authorize electric cars; 3. more cars in Central Park will be dangerous.

I clicked on the link to her letter, eagerly waiting to see her factual response. Boy, was I disappointed. All Ms. Barizone could muster up was that “carriage hacks lie out of desperation” leaving it to each of your readers to guess which of the facts I stated were a lie (none were).

Sadly, this is the level of discourse from the animal rights groups. It is infused with horrible sounding allegations, but no facts. Let’s just look at Mr. Barizone’s pejorative charge that the carriage horses “lug tourists through dangerous city traffic.” This is an emotional statement. The facts are that: Even fully loaded, a carriage is quite easy for a large horse to pull. It is the equivalent of an average person pushing a shopping cart with a few gallons of milk in it. In more than 30 years, just three horses have died while working, which is a record to be proud of. (In 2012 alone, 271 people died in NYC car accidents.)

To conclude, the reason the animal rights people have failed in NYC is that they did not buttress their argument with facts. They chose to rely on emotionally charged pictures and pejorative language, but NYC voters weren’t fooled.