New York City Council Passes Legislation to Phase Out Carriage Horse Rides

The New York City Council today took historic action in passing Romanch’s Law to phase out carriage horse rides in New York City. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has pledged to sign it.

In a world with so much exploitation and harm, it’s a modest number of animals who’ll be liberated from this servitude. But those horses will have a far larger footprint than the width and depth of their shoes. This legislative action, led by Council Member Christopher Marte and Speaker Julie Menin, is a symbol of meaningful progress for animals, occurring in America’s largest city and watched by so much of the world. It’s a mightily important win, ending a form of forced animal labor that has endured for 150 years and, decades ago, outlived its usefulness.

As a high school senior in 1983, I went on a field trip to Central Park with about 20 other students from my all-boys Catholic high school in West Haven, Conn. It was a memorable experience for my classmates and me, but not a good one.

I cast a pall over the entire trip in seeing the overburdened horses pulling carriages and people and the horrible living conditions for tigers, leopards, and other big cats and bears kept in small concrete-and-steel enclosures at the Central Park Zoo. The horses looked beaten down, and the big cats were going mad, pacing back and forth endlessly and living in solitary confinement.

I asked, “What are we doing here and gawking at these animals who don’t deserve this misery?”

None of the big cats and other captive wild animals had done anything to warrant the extreme confinement and isolation. And the horses didn’t want to stand and walk on asphalt or to dodge cabs, cars, trucks, and the noise and tumult of the world’s biggest, most congested city. They were conscripted into forced labor in a setting that was so unsuitable for them. These horse carriages no longer serve a valued transportation purpose. The attraction is presented as some sort of nostalgic, ornamental experience, but what is a fleeting experience for tourists is a form of enduring misery for the animals at the center of the venture.

The Central Park Zoo shuttered just months after I visited that park for the first time. It was demolished soon thereafter, and a new, far superior zoological institution took its place with a very different mission. But for decades, the horse carriages kept rolling on, with hooves clattering on the city streets and on the paths in Central Park and with horses going down with unnerving regularity.

The passage of Intro. 943 and its legislative antecedents shouldn’t have taken this long to win a majority vote in the City Council.

In June, Romanch Mahajan, an Indian national celebrating his acceptance to college with a trip to New York, was killed after the horse hitched to the carriage in which he and three other family members were seated bolted through Central Park. As the carriage heaved left and right, the 18-year-old man tried to prevent his mother from being tossed to the ground, and in the process, he tumbled out at high speed and suffered a fatal head injury.

Just days before, Deniz collapsed and died after the driver allowed the 16-year-old carriage horse to graze on the poisonous leaves of a Japanese yew tree, even though city regulations forbid consumption of the plant life in Central Park. Dozens and dozens of other horses became victims of this enterprise.

That’s why it’s so thrilling to see Romanch’s law pass, with Mayor Zohran Mamdani pledging to sign this bill into law.

New York City Lawmakers Stand Tall

A supermajority of the New York City Council, led on Intro. 943 by Councilman Martel and Speaker Menin, has taken important action to end this obsolete practice. The horse carriage operators have had a long history of recklessness, and the enterprise no longer deserves a free run in and around the jam-packed environs of Central Park and the streets surrounding it.

A network of hundreds of horse sanctuaries, rescue organizations, and caring horse lovers will welcome these beleaguered animals, just as so many shelters and rescue groups were eager to make room for 2,000 beagles from Ridglan Farms.

When these horses are released from their yokes and harnesses, they can spend the rest of their lives grazing on pasture instead of standing on pavement, breathing fresh air instead of exhaust fumes, and enjoying the company of others of their kind, not working 10-hour days only to be stabled in a prison-like parking garage.

Over the course of my adult lifetime, I’ve watched our society reject practices once defended as major features of the American experience. Dogfighting and cockfighting have retreated to the margins because citizens demanded stronger laws and better enforcement.

Circus elephants have largely disappeared because the public no longer accepts entertainment purchased through suffering. Increasingly, the use of dogs, cats, primates, and other animals in laboratory experiments is giving way to superior, animal-free, and cruelty-free technologies.

Kangaroo-skin shoes are now passé in the world of professional soccer. And I am happy to report that three of America’s biggest cities — Chicago, Philadelphia, and now New York — have passed legislation to retire the horses and halt these carriage rides.

Soon I’ll be able to go to Central Park to enjoy the visit — no longer morally troubled and depressed by the experience.

Thanks to all the advocates who joined together to drive this outcome. And to the legislators who voluntarily got the job done for the horses.

Support our efforts to pass other critical animal welfare legislation!