Though carriage drivers say they are committed to the health of their horses, concerns over the animals’ well-being have been raised in the city for decades.
The carriages have been opposed by animal-rights groups, including one that was founded in response to New York’s industry. In 1866, after Henry Bergh witnessed the brutal beating of a carriage horse, he established the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) to protest horses’ treatment and other instances of animal abuse.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) and a coalition of organisations supporting the horse-carriage ban also oppose the carriages.
Horses can work up to nine hours a day. They are currently restricted to certain entrances of the park, where they stand and wait with drivers to be hired. Customers pay $72.22 for a 20-minute ride, plus $28.89 for every extra ten minutes.
Vanessa Stolle, a German tourist, said she and her family had horses at home – and that they do not belong in a noisy park pulling passengers.
“To stand the whole day here – it’s loud for them and they can’t go to the countryside,” she said.
A fellow German tourist, Christian Bauers, disagreed. He remembered seeing the horses when he came to Central Park 20 years ago. “It’s part of the culture of New York,” he said. “Let them stay. It’s cute.”
Jeanne Collopy is an animal lover from Colorado, where horses run wild, she said. She worries about accidents in the park that have harmed humans and horses.
“I know there’s a union and I hate to have people out of work,” she said, adding: “It’s a little bit confining for the horses.”
Her husband, Chris Koenigs, said the animals were “wonderful” to look at. But the death of the teenager this summer was “sickening”, and a high price to pay for enjoying the horses, he said.
“The park is magnificent,” he added. “I can’t help but think, it would be a magnificent park with or without the carriages.”
