An inhumane industry, an outdated tradition...
Here is the trailer for Blinders, the documentary about the controversial carriage horse industry in New York City:
And here is a Daily Show segment in which Liam Neeson and Jon Stewart debate the issue:
What do you think?
And here is a Daily Show segment in which Liam Neeson and Jon Stewart debate the issue:
What do you think?
Comments
Our safety record is STELLAR - 68 carriages operating approx 300 days a year /25 years = over 2 MILLION trips in traffic back and forth to the stables. (this does not even include all of the actual rides done!)
We have had THREE equine fatalities due to traffic accidents in those 25 years.
NO equine pursuit can claim a similar ratio (500 horses died onracetracks just since the Kentucky Derby last year - hell, 100 HUMANS were hit by cars and killed in 2008 in NYC alone)
While each of the three horse deaths was a tragedy (I knew each one - Chester ‘85, Tony ‘90, and Spotty ‘07), there is nothing in life with no risk, & certainly not in human/horse activities. Many, many more horses are injured or killed in eventing, jumping, racing, polo, etc. The humaniacs would eradicate all horses in order to eradicate all risk - something I do believe they could live with, & indeed, it’s something that many of them actively seek. They drag out the same ghoulish pics from these accidents on every website & at every demonstration, sometimes even using pictures of dead or injured horses from other parts of the country and saying they were in NYC!
Anybody hell-bent on putting carriages out of business should hop on down to the auction & buy a slaughter-bound horse and care for it for the rest of its natural life. That would actually be doing something to help the horses, not hurt them.
The epidemic of abandoned horses across the country is due to what is being called a “perfect storm” of a slow economy, highfeed prices, &recent national outlawing of slaughterhouses. This is a mammoth crisis - 1000s of horses being left to waste away in fields &paddocks, or surrendered to over-crowded rescues. Closing down a business where horses lead content & exceedingly reasonable existences will only ADD to this problem.
A well-loved, cared-for horse with a job is a lucky horse.
Many of the AR people would rather see a horse dead than have a job. To them, a carriage horse doing what it was bred to do, and living a comfortable, content existence alongside his driver, is no different from Michael Vick and a pile of mutilated fighting dogs or undercover horror videos revealing grotesque cruelties at factory farms.
Indeed, humaniacs have made public statements comparing the carriage horse trade to the enslavement of people of African descent, and the Holocaust of the Jewish people during WWII.
Can any of you imagine what it is like for someone like me - a lifelong horse person, dedicated to my horses in every way - to be maligned and vilified like this? Even if you are only a pet owner - imagine someone constantly lying and distorting how you treat your pet, and then going public with it.
There are no horse-torturing monsters in our business, no matter what any of them say.
And while everyone is entitled to their own opinion, they are not entitled to their own facts.