Public Voices for the New York City Carriage Horses

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**Russell Simmons’ absurd attack (July 19, 2015: New York Daily News)**

Bayside: I woke up the other morning to the news that Russell Simmons, headlining an event by anti-carriage group NYCLASS, told the world that my husband and his co-workers, NYC carriage drivers and owners, are no different than Goebbels or Hitler, and no different than any American slave trader from the 18th or 19th century.

That when they climb up on their carriages in the morning and head out to give folks rides through Central Park, their activity should conjure images of the Holocaust; that driving horses in an urban area should be compared to the killing of the Jewish people by the millions, and that the streets of NYC are counterparts to the ovens and gas chambers of Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

Simmons’ words imply that when my husband buys our family a new horse from an Amish farmer, he is walking in the footsteps of those who brought Africans to this country chained in ship galleys, to be sold for forced labor, enduring the unthinkable for the rest of their natural lives.

Absurd? Obscene? Shocking? Demented? You betcha.

I want to thank Simmons for speaking out. He is a representative face of the so-called animal rights movement in this country, and the more the members of that group tell the world what they really think and believe, the easier it will be to make sure that they never get a seat at any table where animal welfare issues are being discussed. Eva Hughes