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Activists in Columbia are demanding an end to carriage horse abuse following several incidents in which overheated, malnourished and exhausted horses collapsed in the streets of the tourist city of Cartegena.

Horse-drawn carriages cannot be operated humanely or safely in any urban area, much less in a city like Cartegena that doesn’t regulate the industry and where the drivers are abusing their horses.  Forcing nervous prey animals to haul carriages in the streets with motor vehicles and depriving them of the ability to do anything that comes naturally to them is simply cruel.  And this anachronistic industry needs to be banned. Tradition is never an excuse for the inhumane treatment of animals.  To learn more about the plight of urban carriage horses, please see BLINDERS The Movie. 

The NY Times editorial board published an opinion piece called “Keep The Carriage Horses” arguing that carriages have been a “fixture for generations” and that the industry should be reformed, not banned.

Once again, the NY Times editorial board has come out in favor of keeping horse-drawn carriages in midtown, suggesting reforms that they know are impossible to implement, such giving the horses the opportunity “to eat and socialize with one another.” NYC doesn’t have a pasture for one horse, much less over 200 of them. But even if the NY Times’ proposed reforms could be implemented, that wouldn’t change the fact that forcing horses to pull carriages in the streets of midtown is inherently inhumane, unsafe and anachronistic. If the NY Times editorial board members saw BLINDERS, they would have to change their position because the documentation on the cruelty and safety issues is indisputable. But, like so many other industry supporters, they refuse to take off their blinders. These horses will be taken out of harm’s way eventually, and the NY Times and other industry supporters will be on the wrong side of history. In the meantime, please contact Mayor de Blasio and ask him to make good on his promise to take the horses off of the streets.

HLN’s Jane Velez-Mitchell provides the advocacy community with a rare opportunity to explain why horse-drawn carriages cannot be operated humanely or safely in urban areas.

Animals exist for their own purposes. Using them to entertain us is inherently inhumane and invariably abusive, as documented in films like The Cove, Blackfish, An Apology to Elephants and Blinders, which is my documentary about the plight of NYC’s carriage horses. Please visit the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages to see how you can help bring an end to urban horse-drawn carriages.