A 15-year-old mare pulling carriages in New York City collapsed and died Tuesday. City officials are trying to find out why the horse perished.
The mare named Lady fell near Manhattan’s 11th Avenue and West 51st Street at around 2:30 p.m. and was pronounced dead after being returned to a stable, the New York City Police Department said, according to The New York Times. No criminal violations are suspected to have caused the horse’s death.
“I couldn’t help but see its muscles jiggled, and its tongue was rolling around on the ground,” witness Alex, 26, who did not provide a surname, told the New York Post.
Representatives of the horse carriage industry said that sometimes random animal deaths happen.
“Lady was walking home to her stable from Central Park when she suddenly died. Lady had just started her role as an iconic NYC carriage horse, arriving here in June. A complete physical was conducted at that time, and no abnormalities were identified. Sadly, animals, including humans and horses, sometimes die suddenly and unexpectedly. We are insisting that a complete necropsy be conducted by a board-certified pathologist at an esteemed university to determine the cause of death,” Christina Hansen, a horse cab driver and a shop steward for Transport Workers Union Local 100, told New York’s WPIX.
Lady is thought to be the first carriage horse to die while working since the 2011 death of a 15-year-old stallion named Charlie, reported the NYT.
In light of Lady’s death, activists are calling on city leaders to pass Ryder’s Law, a bill named for a horse that collapsed in the street in 2022 while working and died months later. The bill would stop the issuance of new licenses to horse cab operators, with the aim of winding down the practice in New York City for good.
“This cruel, barbaric, outdated industry has no place in our city. We can’t allow a handful of horse owners to profit off the suffering of these beautiful animals,” New York City Councilmember Bob Holden, a Democrat and the bill’s sponsor, wrote on X.
Edita Birnkrant, executive director of New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets, which is against the horse carriage industry, told WINS-FM that “it could be a heart attack. I mean, remember, this horse was working through some record-breaking heat. It’s a 15-year-old horse, which is on the older side, but not elderly necessarily. But unfortunately, so many of these horses are in such poor condition that this is why they are worked to death, because the city allows sick horses to be worked because there’s no safety protocols in place.”
