Lady was 15 years old, but couldn’t survive six weeks on New York’s streets.
Lady, a Central Park carriage horse, collapsed on a Hell’s Kitchen street and was “dead when she hit the ground” Tuesday — almost three years to the day since a horse named Ryder fell, and later had to be put down, sparking outrage across the city.
“I couldn’t help but see its muscles jiggled, and its tongue was rolling around on the ground,” bystander Alex, 26, who was walking to get a smoothie when she saw a crowd gathering around the collapsed horse on 11th Avenue, told The Post.
“It looked completely dead, I mean, its eyes were open and unblinking the whole time.”
Lady, 15, was new to the city and had only done two rides this afternoon, according to Christina Hansen, a spokesperson for Big Apple horse carriage drivers.
“She was dead when she hit the ground,” said Hansen, who thinks Lady may have had an aneurysm or a heart attack.
At first, the driver attempted to revive Lady, and deli workers brought out buckets of water, said Bernadette Edwards, 38, who worked at the deli across the street.
By the time Alex walked down, other horse carriage drivers from the stables around the corner were trying to lug Lady’s carcass into a trailer.
“I was just like watching (Lady’s) mane dragging on the ground, and there were some fluids coming out of it onto the ramp into the trailer,” Alex said of the horrifying scene.
“It felt like they were really desperate to remove it.”
Police arrived, and Lady was driven to the stables for carriage horses around the block. Her body will eventually be transported to Cornell University for a post-mortem exam.
“Horses are collapsing, suffering, and dying over and over again — and nothing changes,” said Edita Birnkrant, the executive director of New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets.
Hansen insisted that Lady was not overworked before her death. The horse was recently purchased from Pennsylvania and had passed her veterinary exam on June 12 with flying colours.
“We have some of the strictest carriage regulations in the country,” Hansen said. “We’re under constant scrutiny because we work in public, and now there are smartphones.”
Earlier this summer, carriage driver Ian McKeever was acquitted on charges of animal abuse in the death of his horse, Ryder, whose public collapse in Midtown triggered three years of controversy and a city council bill, Ryder’s Law, which, if passed, would ban carriages in Central Park.
“By blocking Ryder’s Law, (lawmakers) are protecting abusers and silencing the public demand for change,” Birnkrant said.
Read the full article here
