07/25/2022
https://www.facebook.com/1611195737/posts/10225113158208692/?d=n
Outside City Hall, NYC Council Member Kristin Richardson Jordan voiced her views against Capitalist societies and expressed that money shouldn't be brought up when it comes to her decision to co-sponsor intro 573 that would replace NYC carriage horses with electric vehicles. While carriage drivers and other workers do earn their living in partnership with horses in this industry, the fact is that most of the income generated from the horseâs work goes directly towards the high cost of the care of the horses themselves. A number of factors go into the level of cost, but one issue is that droughts lead to rising hay costs and people forget how much more a draft horse eats than a smaller breed of horse and that there is also no grass to graze on throughout the winter in most states. The reality is that the number one reason so many horse rescues fail and are forced to close their doors is due to a lack of funding. NYCLASS is headed and funded by millionaire Steve Nislick and billionaire Wendy Neu, but they did not put aside any money to guarantee the 200+ NYC carriage horses care for the rest of their lives in their bill. Instead intro 573 just states that the horses can be âhumanely disposed of,â while NYCLASS is spending seven figures on advertising to promote their bill. Audio recordings of Steve Nislick discussing the prime real estate the carriage stable properties sit upon have also caught him saying he believes the horses would be better off euthanized. This isnât about the welfare of the horses for them; This is about money, real estate, and the wealthy elite exerting their power.
We donât think the privilege of horse ownership should be restricted to the extremely wealthy and that itâs an elitist view to believe only those who can afford significant acreage in a rural area should have access to interactions with horses. No one should lose the right to earn an income that provides their horse with appropriate care by working with them in an urban environment. As draft horses are domesticated animals that never existed in the wild they rely on work provided by humans in order for their physical and mental health to thrive. This means they need to be exercised through some type of work and depriving them of it doesnât only negatively impact them but could possibly be categorized as a type of animal cruelty. The beauty of working with an animal that generates their own income in addition to your own means that you donât have to worry about only being able to provide them with work when youâre not at a separate job! You actually get to spend all your working time in partnership with your horse to ensure not only your own livelihood but theirs as well. A tourist from Minnesota recently remarked on the beautiful system established within the New York City carriage industry to care for their horses. He said his family had eight horses when he was growing up, but they never had time to ride them because they were too busy working to buy them hay and without stablemen too busy tending to their other needs. As horses are no longer the necessities they once were for most transportation and farming, itâs our responsibility to find them work in places with us in our modern society to secure the survival of their species. We shouldnât be further limiting those options for them.
In NYC carriage horse stall board is approximately $3,000 per month for 1-2 horses, which includes stall mucking, water, hay and basic oats/grain pellets. Every horse licensed to pull a carriage needs shoes every 4-6 weeks which is about $200. Every horse must have two veterinary exams per year which would be a few hundred dollars, but costs can vary depending on the specific needs of every horse. Every horse must vacation on pastures for a minimum of five weeks per year which is another few hundred dollars (and stable stall board doesnât decrease.) Thatâs the bare minimum that excludes other supplies, supplements, teeth floating (filing), and other various costs that go into the general care of horse. When you remove a job from a horse who is required by law to meet certain standards of care, you remove that guarantee and the financial security that ensures those standards of living. If the demand for horse carriage rides wasnât there, the industry would have shut their doors long ago. The fact is people enjoy horse carriage rides, horses enjoy working, and this system works incredibly well as it is.
NYCLASS is putting seven figures into ad campaigns supporting intro 573 that would ban NYC carriage horses and replace them with electric vehicles at the cityâs discretion. Every year tens of thousands of horses are shipped to slaughter in Mexico and Canada because there just arenât enough financially stable homes to take them in. Horse rescues across the country struggle to place horses in homes that can afford their care for their lifespan, often into their late twenties and early thirties. No NYC horse carriage driver has ever sent a horse to slaughter and they spend a long time finding a suitable home for their horse when it comes to retire them, typically to private homes, farms, and occasionally draft horse sanctuaries, (but typically those places are reserved for horses in need of rescue.) Can you imagine what it would be like if over 200 horses needed to be placed at once? It would be difficult to ensure every home found would be able to financially care for that horse for the rest of their life and not sell the horse where they could wind up at an auction where horses are purchased for slaughter down the line. NYC carriage drivers work very hard to find homes that will not slander their name to generate an income. Imagine thinking youâve retired your horse to a decent farm only to find out theyâre accusing you of having abused your horse in the past to create a sad story that generates donations!
There are over 200 horses in the NYC carriage horse industry that have loving homes, owners able to care for them in partnership through their work, financial security through their jobs, and their health, safety, and general well being guaranteed per their regulations. Removing those horses from their jobs puts them at as much risk as every other horse without a home right now. Can you imagine how many horses NYCLASS could save if they spent any of their millions of dollars on those horses in need of being rescued? Donât you think thatâs what they would have done for even just a few horses if they were interested in improving the lives of horses after all these years since their creation? They have the real estate funded financial backings of Billionaire Wendy Neu and Millionaire Steve Nislick heading their organization, but their focus remains on the horses in three stables surrounded by rising high rise buildings.
The fact is you cannot remove the financial discussion from this proposal because itâs so deeply relevant. Anyone who thinks a job is just a job and a horse is interchangeable with a machine because the NYC horse carriage industry just exists to generate a financial value isnât an animal person and doesnât understand the intricate emotions of horses and the bonds they share with their human partners. If you donât think a machine is a suitable replacement for your dog or cat, donât tell horse carriage drivers theyâre being given a legitimate option to continue their business.
