Central Park Carriage Horses Could Be Put Down After Ban, Owners Tell the Sun

Starlight, a seven-year-old dappled gray mare, has been pulling a carriage driven by her owner, Alexus Lawson, in Central Park for almost three years. She takes a high-protein feed, prefers affection in the form of snacks over caresses, and does not like to be ridden, though she is trained for both carting and riding, Ms. Lawson told The New York Sun as Starlight galloped through an idyllic autumn morning in the park. Starlight summers with Ms. Lawson’s other horses at a farm in Pennsylvania, where the team spends far more than their legally-required five weeks of time off each year. Ms. Lawson says she bought her from a dealer in North Carolina after Starlight proved “too lazy for the Amish.”Their days together are likely numbered, though, with the New York City Council set to vote Thursday on a bill to outlaw carriage rides in Central Park after 168 years.Veteran carriage driver Alexus Lawson poses with Starlight. Jennifer Doherty/The New York SunMs. Lawson, who has been driving a carriage for nine years, is taking stock of what the future holds for Starlight, her five other horses, and herself.“ If I cannot afford my horses, all six of them, then I have to pick and choose. Do I sell some horses back to the Amish because they need plow horses? I can’t get rid of my retired horses. They don’t stand a chance,” she said as Starlight strolled near Sheep Meadow. Horses that reach the end of their useful lifespans without an owner ready to provide them a soft retirement are at risk of falling into “pipelines,” Ms. Lawson explained, in which middlemen will buy them up only to sell them off for slaughter. The slaughter pipeline is a problem the council has acknowledged, including language in the bill that prohibits carriage horse owners from selling them after the ban “for purposes of slaughter, resale for slaughter, or holding or transport for slaughter, or for use in a horse drawn cab business.” However carriage horse owners point out that those rules cannot be enforced on middlemen.“Horses like her stand a better chance, but then I can’t control her future if she’s out of my hands, and that’s heartbreaking for me,” she said. “I don’t want to have to think about that,” she said. “I raised this horse.”The bill currently pending before the Council has been dubbed “Romanch’s Law” in memory of Romanch Mahajan, 18, who died after jumping from a runaway carriage in June while visiting the city with his parents from India.Ms. Lawson was there when it happened, she told the Sun. The horse was fairly new to the park, she said. As his driver mounted the carriage, the animal shot off like he was “running for his life,” taking Mr. Mahajan and his parents with him.Ms. Mahajan fell out of the carriage near Cherry Hill, and her son jumped out to help his mother, Ms. Lawson said, but hit his head on the road. Starlight pauses for a snack as owner Alexus Lawson applies bug repellent to her legs. Jennifer Doherty/The New York SunThe family has sued the city and ConEdison for $105 million, alleging negligence, unsafe roadways and possible stray electrical voltage that may have spooked the horse.“ It was very tragic situation,” Ms. Lawson said. “ We’re not trying to gloss over that. I’m not trying to say it didn’t matter, it did.” At the same time, she questions the true motivations for the bill bearing Mr. Mahajan’s name. “If he would have jumped out of a pedicab and hit his head and passed away in the same manner, would there be the same uproar that we have for the horse carriages?”The pedicabs are a source of consternation for another carriage driver, Tony, who’s been working in the park for 40 years. “This was a pleasurable job and they came along then and that was it,” he said as two pedicabs buzzed Harry, the brown standard bred pulling his carriage. The pedicabs have also taken the spots where the carriages used to line up, he says, and less visibility means fewer customers. Neither Tony nor Ms. Lawson own their carriages, which operate on a medallion system. The system has been used to regulate the city’s horse-drawn cabs, as the carriages are still legally known since before the dawn of the car age and the city’s signature yellow taxis.The city has promised to help the park’s approximately 200 unionized carriage drivers into new work. Joseph, a driver of three years, who met his wife, a fellow carriage driver, in the park isn’t interested in working for the MTA he said as he waited for customers by Central Park South. The young couple, he from Turkey and she from Ecuador, won’t stay in New York if the bill passes. He says they are looking at moving to Florida. “We’re here for the horses,” he said.Harry the horse and his owner Tony wait for their next customer by Central Park South. Jennifer Doherty/The New York SunWell into his 70s, Tony has little interest in what the city says it will offer displaced carriage drivers, though the best days of the carriage industry are also in the rearview.He’s driven Kennedy family members through the park, and once saw Pavarotti struggling into another driver’s buggy. But celebrities don’t ride much anymore, he says. Planned renovations at The Plaza will also cut into business.“We saw the best years,” he said as we passed crews setting up bleachers at what will be the finish line for the New York marathon. He says he doesn’t know where Harry will wind up.Frederick Law Olmstead designed Central Park’s famed vistas specifically to be viewed from carriages, and hackney cabs have been queuing to bring tourists through the 858-acre park since it opened in 1858. In 1862, the City Council created an exemption to local blue laws so that the horse-drawn cabs could operate on Sundays, giving working class New Yorkers a chance to enjoy the service on their one day off. For almost as long, the industry has been shaped by the animal rights movement. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded in 1866, largely with a view to improving conditions for New York’s carriage horses. Today, drivers aren’t allowed to take the horses out of their stables before 9:30 am. Most days, the horses can expect to do two to three loops before they call it a day. Central Park carriage rides were a mainstay in popular culture through the 19th and 20th centuries. Movies from 1948’s Judy Garland vehicle ‘Easter Parade’ to 2003’s ‘Elf’ featured signature Manhattan leisure time activity.

Central Park Carriage Horses Could Be Put Down After Ban, Owners Tell the Sun

Central Park Carriage Horses Could Be Put Down After Ban, Owners Tell the Sun

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