Are the New York Carriage Horses really working too hard pulling horse carriages through Central Park. Jeff and several others sent me this photograph of New York work horses hauling snow to the rivers in the great blizzard of 1988. I asked one wagon builder what these snow wagons weighed, and he said about 4,000 pounds, that was not considered a heavy load for draft horses. Until the animal rights movement abruptly redefined abuse in recent years, horses pulled wagons full of bricks, cobblestones, lumber, rocks and debris and wagons full of all kinds of manufacturing products and goods.

Equine vets and behaviorists can the big draft horses can easily haul four or five times their own weight. The New York Carriage Horses weight on average between 1,500 and 1,900 pounds. Light carriages weigh between 1,000 and 1,500 lbs. Pulling carriages in Central Park is probably the lightest work these work animals have been asked to do in their 300 year history in New York City. They are our partners in life, not our dependents, siblings, children, or piteous wards. They have always stood with us and alongside of us as we have done our work and lived our lives.

A score of independent veterinarians have visited the New York Carriage Horse stables this past year, other vets – working for the police and the health department – routinely examine the horses. They have been universally found to be fit, well-cared for, with good clear lungs and well-groomed hooves and bodies. This is the controversy that should never have happened. These are not the horses in need of rescue, the people in the carriage trade are not the people who abuse horses.