Fucking awesome.

While some of the coach drivers treat their horses well, many do not. The horses mostly look miserable. Imagine you are constantly outside, exposed to loud noise of traffic in NYC. Not fun. Now imagine you are a horse who has no idea what all that craziness is, but you are forced to be out in it while stomping your hard toenail feet onto concrete for long days while pulling fat tourists.

How will these horses pay off their art degree loans now that they cant draw?

Interesting in-depth article about this from the New Yorker. It's amazing how much of an impact this seems to have had on city politics over the last 30 years or so.

My city did this. Kinda miss the look even if you where not riding in one. The issue was animal welfare but I kinda wish they would just make it a city run service so they can make sure the animals are treated well. Price would be high but I feel it has knock on effects because of again the kinda look it gives and is kinda an attraction. There is a zoo in the city so I wonder if it might be nice to integrate it. Have them start and stop from there and would give them a chance to get some excersise and get some stimulation.

I used to have fun going down to pet the carriage horses in downtown Charleston, SC when I was younger and lived there but as I grew up and learned about the abuse they endured I can only look back and wonder if my petting them was one of their favorite times too. They need to shut that one down too. Maybe it will happen someday with how many New Yorkers have moved there.

"Don't worry, you won't have to do this any more in 44 years."

Good! These never seemed to make sense.

Apparently there are 200 or so drivers and horses. I think we should definitely do better about animal welfare, but it's strange that the city can prohibit them from selling their horses to other carriage companies. I also think it's strange that the city is not required to really do anything for the workers. Basically they just have to offer bare minimum career counseling which most cities offer to anyone anyway.

I support getting rid of the practice, but this does feel a little one sided. 200 people will have to find new jobs after potentially having owned and run their own business for years and have to sell their horses with additional restrictions imposed by the city. The city is giving them some time, but I'm sure it's still impacting everyone. Hopefully this leads to better long term outcomes for both the horses and the workers.

I don't mind this. I've never ridden one of the horse carriages. They seem expensive aside from the animal welfare concerns.

RUSTY!!!!

GOOD

I don't find them inherently bad, and much of the reasoning I hear could apply to horse ownership in general, but the cost and effort of regulation is probably not worth it.

This is big news!