Pray for me.

I am a New York Carriage Horse,

proud and brushed and plumed,

I step proudly and eagerly,

into the world, in my shiny

black carriage.

Pray for me,

do not feel sorry for me.

Feed me and care for me,

give me fresh hay, shelter, good water,

a clean stable,

give me work to do.

I will walk with you, sustain you and your families,

put money on your table,

haul your goods, pull your carriages, carry

you on my backs,

and brighten the days

and nights of the people who visit the

our park, where we have walked every day,

for 150 years.

I will bring the wind and the water and the rain,

I am the past and the future,

do not ban me or banish me or take me away

from my purpose for being.

Do not send me to slaughter,

or a barren farm where I will stand all

day and drop waste,

and never be seen again by the children,

or the people who live in the great city,

and I will disappear from the world.

Know me, I am not

one of your children, I do not exist for you

to feel superior to others, I am not your brother or sister,

or a helpless creature to be protected from life,

or hidden away, to be lost and forgotten.

Work with me, visit me, touch me,

do not patronize me, or diminish me.

I am strong, not weak,

I have lived in deserts and mountains,

worked in cold and heat, suffered

plagues and fires,

carried great burdens long distances,

survived in crowded cities and lonely farms,

I am your partner in life, in it’s joys and travails,

I am not your helpless dependent, to be

sacrificed in the name of loving me.

Pity is not love, pity is not for me,

it is for you.

Do not use me and pervert my meaning to hate people,

that is never

my purpose, never my cause.

Do not send me away to strangers,

I am a real animal living in the real world.

If you dare to make decisions for me,

then know me, do not condemn me to live without dignity

or value, with people

who will leave me to stand and rot on my feet.

I pray for you to not make the mistake,

that can never be undone, it is the horses

who will pay and suffer.

I was born to work and bred to work,

it is my identity, my existence, just as it is for human beings.

Do not take from me what you cherish in your own hearts.

I am a New York Carriage Horse, healthy and content,

privileged to be needed, to put food on the tables of so many families,

smiles on the faces of children and lovers.

I am the magic and the mystery,

the prophets and symbols of the natural world,

I stand for them and speak for them,

and the world of animals, we are so few now.

I pray that you will know me, not banish me,

I pray  you not send me away, but keep me,

that you not confuse ignorance with justice,

the wrong that can never be righted,

the loss of something than can never be replaced.

I pray that you know me,

before you, in all of your arrogance, presume to decide my fate.

I pray you to consider the horses, once again

threatened with exile and extinction. Close your eyes,

and hear our ancient songs, we have been calling out to you,

for so long, hear us, I pray that you open your hearts and souls,

and listen. We speak for our Mother, the earth.

I pray in the name of all of the working animals

of the world, we seek nothing more than to stand

alongside the human beings of the world,

as we have done for so many thousands of years,

and remain your partners in life.

If we are driven away,

the beautiful park will become barren and stripped of history and magic,

as were the ancient lands where we worked and roamed.

Please pray for the people who depend on us for their food and freedom,

and also for those who seek

to ban us from the city. They do not know what they do.