I’m sad to learn that, once again, the ignorant people who call themselves animal rights champions are after the New York Carriage Horses, who have worked beautifully and safely for 168 years, and are close to getting the horses banned from their historic work in Central Park.

A carriage horse broke loose recently when the driver got out to take a photo of one of his drivers; the horse panicked, and a young teenage rider fell on his head and died.

Romanch Mahahan died on June 17, 2026, when the driver got out of the wagon to take a picture for the riders and the horse ran. His tragic death was the only death associated with a Carriage Horse in its long history. The horse panicked and ran. And the horse is a victim also, or soon will be.

If the City Council bans them, these magnificent working horses will never be seen again in the park they helped to build, nor will anyone be able to see them.

The New York City Council is expected to vote to ban them, supported by the City Council Leader and the new Mayor, Zohran Mamdani,  who seems to know little about animals.

It’s a heartbreaker; these horses will either be killed or condemned to live without work,  activity, or attention and do nothing but drop manure if they live at all.

No one will see them in cities; for future children, they will only be seen on YouTube.

They are fed, housed, and get year-round medical care, something few horses in the world receive.

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When I wrote about the Carriage Horses a few years ago, I learned from more than a score of veterinarians from all over the country – I talked to each one –  that these horses are the luckiest and best cared-for horses on the planet, watched over by five different police departments, and banned from riding in very warm or very cold weather. Farm horses are not that fortunate.

The carriage horses are examined by trained veterinarians every week.

These are work horses bred and trained to work in cities, and in all of those years, not one human being was killed by a carriage horse before this incident, and millions of people have loved riding in the carriages they pulled. They helped to build New York and Central Park itself and many other cities and deserve better.

More than 63 million people die worldwide in car accidents every year: 150,000 deaths per day, two deaths every second.

No automobiles have been banned because of those deaths. In America, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of preventable death for people aged 5-22 and the second most common cause for ages 23-67. Between 1899 and 2023, there were 17,224,789 traffic fatalities in the United States.

No cars have been banned in any American cities or towns. Children come from all over the world to see them and ride with the horses.

No one has suggested banning automobiles after car accidents.

Nor is there a place ready to accept the horses when they are kicked out of their historic place in New York, nor has anyone said what the 170 to 200 licensed carriage horse drivers do for a living. It costs thousands of dollars to feed and care for the New York Carriage Horses – who is going to pay that to keep them penned somewhere with nothing to do? They have worked all of their lives and history for thankless humans.

This is the only work left to them. If you visit their stalls – visitors are welcome – you will see a lot of love and connection between their owners and drivers and them.

I ignored the ignorance and cruelty of the animal rights movement when I adopted Zip, my wonderful Barn Cat, and did not bring him into the house at night in the winter; he slept in a heated cat house in the Barn and never showed any interest in the house. Barn Cats live in Barns to control rat and rodent diseases.

Based on my experience and observations, these are not people who love animals. They are people who dislike humans and prioritize fundraising.

The people who claim to love the animals sent a stream of ugly and vicious warnings and threats to me, and they finally called the local sheriff to accuse me of abusing Zip and come and take him away from me.

The sheriff came, met Zip, apologized for coming, and laughed. He complimented me on the cat’s health and ease. He loved the heated cat house in the Barn.

The people called me ugly names for months and had no idea that denying a Barn Cat a free and independent life would destroy him and his sense of self. Several conceded they had never seen a Barn Cat.

It would be wrong to take these mystical animals from their work and lives. They are not all furbabies who need to be coddled; many live by nature and not by sofas and heated houses.

They live to kill the creatures that threaten a farm – rats, mice, pigeons. They don’t do it for an hour or two a day; they do it every hour of every day.

For all human history, we have lived with animals, worked with them, loved them, and needed them to build our worlds. Nowhere was this more important than New York City, our country’s biggest and most important city.

No one would be there today without these general and powerful animals, who could love people and work with them.

It is wrong and grossly immoral to throw them out with the garbage because of a single tragic accident,  and out of sight, and to do so at the hands of people who know absolutely nothing about what they need to be healthy and safe. It is ignorant to say working with animals is cruel.

In my experience, the animal rights movement has little knowledge or feeling for the real lives of animals, and of the wonderful history that working animals and the good people who love them have had with them.

Their only idea is to ban them once and for all – the elephants, the ponies, the horses.

When I read about yet another effort by the animal rights people to drive working animals away from people and off of the earth – they will all be gone someday soon- I think back to a quote I read in Joseph Campbell’s wonderful book, “Reflections On The Art Of Living:” –

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“How Can City People call upon animal powers,

if they know nothing about animals?”

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I’d love to ask the New York City Council.

How do the people who know nothing about these magnificent creatures get to kill them and drive them away from human beings?

How do they get to take jobs from people who have been doing them for hundreds of years?

How dare they?