I think it is true that when you help an animal, you help yourself, you help humanity. Thomas Aquinas said we need to be good to animals so that we can be good to ourselves. This, I think is the Blue Star idea, the notion of harmony, compassion, humanity that are part of our long and precious relationship with animals. If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, wrote Francis of Assisi, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.
Sarge, a blind 17-year-old trail horse, went home to Blue Star Wednesday. He will live the rest of his life there in dignity and comfort. He will soon be blind on both eyes, not just one and he needs special care. Even healthy horses are expensive to keep, Blue Star Equiculture has launched a gofundme campaign to help care for Sarge and get him the veterinary care he needs. In the first 20 hours, the project raised $2,505, a good beginning. We have about $10,000 to go.
Sarge is a sweet and generous animal, purchased from a kill buyer at auction last summer. Dorset, Vt. Equine Rescue has been looking for a home for Sarge since August. Sarge has a good one now, he is getting special feed, he is in a stall with a rescued feral horse named Gulliver, they have already bonded with one another. Maria and I are going to see him on Sunday, and he will soon see a veterinary opthalmologist. It is unlikely Sarge will ever see again, but miracles sometimes do happen, and Blue Star is very experienced with animals who are sick and have been sometimes horrifically abused.
I was touched by Sarge when I met him the other day in Vermont, he has learned to approach people slowly, smell them and sense them, he loves to be touched and talked to. He loves to play and run with other horses. He is lively and alert. He seems especially bright to me, and there is a sparkle in his stricken eyes still, it looks to me like he is about to laugh at the world.
I am grateful he is going to Blue Star. Glad to offer him help. Animals are helpless, they can not ask for help themselves, every time we help them it reaffirms our humanity.
I believe this draft horse retirement rescue and organic farming center in Palmer Mass. is a sacred and historic place in the deepening struggle to keep animals in our world, and to treat them and the people who love, live and work with them with compassion and respect. People swarm to Blue Star like pilgrims to Lourdes, it calls out the best in us, not the worst. It is an open and transparent place, there are no secrets there, everyone is welcome.
It is a tonic and a balm against the world portrayed every day on what we call the news.
That is in danger of being lost in the mounting and divisive struggles raging over the future of animals in our world, from the carriage horses to the elephants in the circus and the animals on the farms, and in our homes and backyards.
It is fitting that Sarge is going to Blue Star, I believe they are forging a model for the new way, the Third Way, the new and wiser and more mystical understanding of animals and people that we have seen waiting for and that we desperately need.
The Sioux talk of a spirit dance held by the horses at night, the horses gather to sing and chant a song of lament that they have been forgotten by their human companions, with whom they helped build the world together. At Blue Star, the goal is to keep animals in our every day lives, not to banish them to rescue farms and a life in nature that no longer is possible. They look for ways for animals and people to work together and to love both.
They treat humans with compassion and respect there- they do not create angry websites, they do not raise money for any other purpose than animal care, they do not sent secret informers out into the world to frighten and persecute people in the animal world, they do not seek to remove animals from people, they do not hate and accuse, they do not judge other people, invade their privacy, frighten them or disrupt their work or way of life.
They help the animals, they help the people. Blue Star is crawling with people who draw their own sustenance from the big horses. This is the place I have been seeking, just think of the contrast for yourselves, consider the troubled state of the animal world, awash in confusion and conflict. St. Francis would be at home there, that is the spirit Pamela and Paul have nurtured there. None of God’s creatures are excluded from the shelter of pity and compassion there, we are all one.
And that is the point, I think of helping Sarge, and helping Blue Star, that is their mission, we need it for the animals, for us, for the earth. it is the Third Way, beyond the notion of animals as dumb beasts or piteous creatures, beyond the idea of humans as evil and uncaring.
This is part of a new social awakening, begun by the carriage horses in New York calling to us for help. We reject the angry world of so many men, the way of life practiced in Washington, we are returning to our own humanity. There is nothing more natural on the earth than for animals and people to be together.
There are a lot of people in difficulty these days, a lot of people seeking help. It often seems overwhelming. A woman on my Facebook page started to complain yesterday that there are too many people online seeking help.”Oh, Lord,” she wrote. “Another gofundme.” I know how she feels, but I do not complain about it or regret it.
No one should ever feel pressured to give up money they need, but I am grateful that this new technology makes it easier for us to find people we want to help, easier to know where the money is going, easier to choose to help.
Every time I see this I learn again that people are good, given the chance. I am giving because I want to help this horse live his life in dignity and comfort. And because I believe Blue Star and it’s new model of dealing with animals is the best hope I have seen for their future, and our lives with them.
Yesterday, Sarge, a 17-year-old blind and discarded trail horse came home to Blue Star Equiculture in Palmer, Mass. He will live the rest of his life in comfort, peace and dignity there with our help.
This morning, Blue Star launched a crowdsourcing campaign on gofundme to raise money for the hay and medical care that Sarge urgently needs, now and for the rest of his life.
Sarge has a powerful story to tell. He is already teaching us a lot.
Last August, Sarge was sent to auction in New York State. A kill buyer for a slaughterhouse was buying him when representatives of Dorset Equine Rescue in Vermont stepped in and outbid him. He was minutes away from an awful fate, one that awaits more than 150,000 horses in America each year.
Dorset Rescue bought Sarge for $525, and have spent the last nine months working with him, caring for him, socializing him. Sarge was frightened and disoriented by the rapid loss of his sight. He has lost 90 per cent of the vision in his left eye 100 per cent in his right. He is expected to lost all of his sight soon.
Sarge is a sweet and generous and playful horse, he has a great deal of life to live.
It costs more than $6,000 a year to care for the horses at Blue Star. Paul Moshimer and Pamela Rickenbach-Moshimer, the co-directors at Blue Star, are always reluctant to exploit their horses to raise money. They also provide the best and most loving possible care, and that is an expensive and crushing reality in our world. I am glad they decided to create a gofundme project for Sarge.
I believe very strongly in Blue Star, I believe it is a model for the best way forward for animals and the people who love them. Animals are too often either seen as beasts of burden or piteous and dependent beings. At Blue Star, they are neither, they are our partners in the world. Blue Star seeks ways for people and animals to work together so that animals can remain in or every day lives, not be driven away. We need them and they need us. The horses have been forgotten, they and their legacy live at Blue Star.
You can learn more about Blue Star here. You can follow Blue Star on Facebook and see Sarge’s arrival here.
Today’s animal world is in a sad angry place, wracked by controversy, argument and cruelty, to people and animals both. For the sake of animals, we need a wiser understanding of them and us, and of our relationship with them. I see that at Blue Star. They love animals, saves them, cares for them well. And they love and help people as well. Blue Star does not assault, intimidate or threaten people. They treat people and animals with compassion and dignity. There are no secret informers there, no harassment or targeted people or businesses. They do not seek to remove animals from us. They are the new way, the Third Way of understanding animals in our world.
Sarge is the perfect symbol of the plight of horses and of our way to a better way to help them than exists now. Blue Star is seeking $12,500 to help care for Sarge, I hope they get that and more, they will use every penny of it well. They have a lot of wonderful animals in need. I am going to Blue Star Sunday to see how Sarge is doing, I will, of course, report back. You can help Sarge here. And thanks, we are part of a new social awakening, a wiser understanding of the animals in our world and of their future with us.
Sarge is a 17-year-old discarded trail horse. He is completely blind in his right eye and 90 per cent blind in his left. The vets say he will soon be blind in both eyes. Last summer, Jennifer Straub and Connie Blatchford of Dorset, Vermont, Equine Rescue went to a horse auction in New York State. A kill (slaughterhouse) buyer was bidding on Sarge and the Dorset Rescue workers decided to try and save him. They outbid the kill buyer.
They bought Sarge for $525 and brought him to Vermont, they have been working with him, caring for him, searching for a home for him ever since. He is a sweet horse, gentle and playful, struggling to come to terms with the frightening experience of being blind. They have been looking for a home for him ever since, they contacted 10 difference horse rescue preserves and no one called them back for months, only two called back at all.
They called Blue-Star Equiculture and Pamela Rickenbach-Moshimer called them back instantly. Pam asked if Sarge still had his spirit, that was all she asked. She agreed with Connie and Jen that he had a lot of life to live and agreed to bring him to live at Blue-Star, that would be his new home.
This morning, Paul Moshimer, the co-director of Blue-Star, drove up to Vermont to pick up Sarge and take him to his new home in Palmer, Massachusetts. Ken Norman, our farrier and friend and a rescuer of many horses, came with his wife Eli Anita-Norman to help.
I was very touched by the grace and generosity of this animal, he uses his instincts to approach people and check them out, to run with the other horses, to navigate his world. It was fascinating to see how skillfully Paul and Ken and Eli approached Sarge, used their voices to let him know where they were, used food to calm him. Paul stood in the pasture while Sarge got used to him, talked to him gently, let the horse get to know him, and then he slipped a halter rope on him and led him out to the road and onto his trailer.
Sarge was anxious, but went willingly. Pamela and Paul have set up a special run for Sarge and another horse named Gulliver, who escaped from a stable, then lived in the woods and became feral until some children found him. Paul did not use a lot of words, he used his body and his presence, he seemed to speak to Sarge wordlessly, it seemed that whenever I looked, the horse was getting closer to his new person, getting to know him, start to trust him.
Blue-Star is committed to Sarge, they are already lining up a veterinary opthalmologist to examine and treat him. It is doubtful, Jen says, that he will ever regain his sight, but he will need special care.
Sarge is a lucky horse, his story touched my heart. It was powerful also to see how committed Jen and Connie were to saving him, bringing him to their stables, working with him to understand his new world, and working so hard to find him a new home. It was clearly sad for them to say goodbye. They were both in tears as he left. How good a thing it is to see that there are such good people in the world, and they will extend themselves in this way to help a helpless and handicapped animal live and find a home.
Human beings are good, given the opportunity. Pamela and Paul are working to figure out what it will take to care for Sarge and I hope they will permit me to help out. I will share those discussions. Maria and I may go down to Blue-Star this weekend to see how he is doing. I’ll post some more photos today and regularly from Sarge’s journey.
The carriage horse controversy has raged back and forth all year, animal rights organizations trading accusation and insults with the carriage trade.
The mayor’s proposed ban has met ferocious opposition, most notably from labor unions, newspapers and business organizations in New York City who are outraged at the proposed elimination of more than 300 jobs and who bristle at the overreach of a mayor who wants to shut down a well-regulated and prosperous business that has operated for more than a century in the heart of New York, mostly, it seems, because one of his major campaign contributors does not like it.
Those are valid objections to the ban, and they seem to be resonating with every single age, gender, racial and ethnic group in the normally fractious city. At least 66 per cent of New Yorkers oppose the mayor’s ban, according to recent polls. Last week I attended a rally for the carriage horses at City Hall, it was vocal and well-attended. The focus was on saving jobs, there was strong representation from the Chamber Of Commerce and the Teamsters Union.
At the animal rights rally that preceded it, the focus was on their very new idea of animal abuse and the belief that animals like horses as animals no longer belong in New York City.
It was curious, but I didn’t see a lot of animal lovers at either rally (oddly, it does not seem as if the animal rights people like animals or people much), I continue to believe the urgent issues in this controversy that affect the future of animals are still not being widely debated or understood. And they speak more directly than any of the rally speakers to the rights and the welfare of animals. I was sorry to see that there were few people speaking about the real lives of animals. Perhaps another rally for another time. It is a conversation that urgently needs to happen in New York City and elsewhere. It has not happened yet.
New Yorkers are handicapped, the media there seems to know or care little about animals, and few of the city’s residents – most dramatically the animal rights activists – seem to know anything about animals who are not dogs or cats. It is the welfare of the animals themselves and the truth about their true nature that sometimes seems to get lost in the warring press conferences, statements and rallies in New York.
Outside of New York, animal lovers are awakening to the significance of the carriage horses and their fate. At stake is what abuse really is and what animal welfare means. The animal ideologists in New York are openly xenophobic about animals, especially those that are not pets. They believe all animals are victims or potential victims, and that animals like the carriage horses are simply not safe around human beings or urban environments, they must all be removed to protected preserves. They believe work for animals is exploitive, cruel and abusive.
When people ask me about it, I invoke the parable of the border collie and the carriage horse, because these animals are so similar but are perceived in such radically different ways. Maybe when considered together, they can bridge the divide.
I have been a life-time supporter of the animal rights movement until this year, when I saw it’s excesses, cruelty, financial corruption and moral inversions so clearly on display in New York. To understand the carriage horse controversy, one needs to understand the real issues affecting animals. They are not worried about jobs or business. They are struggling to survive, they need to be understood for what they are, not for what we project them to be.
The animal rights groups say the ban is necessary to stop the abuse of horses. They say the horses are unhappy and yearn for the freedom of the wild, for green pastures and social companionship. Assuming that they are sincere, and are not simply acting as agents for the real estate interests who drool over the West Side stables, as many New Yorkers believe, then people need to understand what is abuse for animals and what working animals like carriage horses and border collies (I have owned border collies for 15 years and written seven books about them) really need.
Animal abuse is a crime everywhere in the United States, it is against the law to neglect or mistreat animals to the point of grievous injury, suffering or neglect. It is illegal to deny shelter, food, water or medical care to animals in need. No legal jurisdiction anywhere in the United States considers it abuse for working animals to work – for border collies to herd sheep, for horses to pull carriages, for bomb-sniffing dogs to search for bombs, for seeing eye dogs to guide the visually impaired, for donkeys to haul wood and goods, for ponies to give rides to children, for elephants to be in a circus, for animals to be used in movies.
The claim that it is abuse for draft horses to pull light carriages on asphalt in Central Park – central to the mayor’s claim that the carriage trade is “immoral” – comes completely outside of the law, tradition, expert belief and common experience. I know of no reputable trainer or behaviorist or veterinarian who believes it is cruel for the carriage horses to do this work.
In fact, the carriage horses embody the very opposite of abuse by any acceptable legal or moral definition. By every account, they are fed, sheltered, regulated, given regular medical care and work, considered essential for the health and well-being of animals like this. “Happy” and “sad” are words animal rights people use, but not words that people who know animals use. Animals are neither happy or sad, they are content or uneasy. Generally speaking, animals that are fed and sheltered and well-treated are content, they do not make career choices or aspire to other kinds of lives.
And this is where the border collie comes in. In the animal world, and in the still rational sectors of the animal rights movement, it is actually considered cruel and abusive for border collies to be deprived of work. Reputable breeders warn border collie buyers not to get border collies if they do not have work for them to do, it is considered cruel for border collies to be confined in homes or apartments without work. These dogs will literally go insane – the opposite of content – if they have nothing to do.
This is not a controversial position, and no border collie advocate, some of whom are also animal rights activists, would consider it abusive for these dogs to work hard herding sheep, and in all kinds of weather. People love to watch these dogs work on TV or at the many herding trials held all over the country, they do not seem to understand that seeing the carriage horses work is no different. There is great joy in seeing an animal do what an animal is bred and meant to do. My border collie Red is not regulated, he does not get five weeks of vacation, he works in the summer and the winter, day or night, snow or sun.
Providing that kind of work for a border collie in the animal world is considered noble, even heroic. The people in the carriage trade have done the same thing for the carriage horses, most of whom would be long gone to slaughter if they were not pulling carriages in New York.
The horses have a much lighter and more constricted and regulated workload than a border collie, but this light work for the huge carriage horses is considered by many in New York to be abuse, something so intolerable that hundreds of people might lose their work and way of life, and the horses sent into the horrific maelstrom of horse slaughter and crisis ongoing in the United States.
The border collie and the draft horse are at different ends of the same spectrum. What applies to one applies to the other in most ways. Initially, the mayor and his supporters in the animal rights movement argued that the horses were being abused, this argument collapsed after scores of veterinarians, behaviorists, journalists and trainers accepted the stable owner’s invitation to come to the stables and see for themselves. I was one of those people. Even the mayor has dropped the claim of abuse, the argument has shifted now to the cruelty inherent in the horses being exposed to awful city fumes and endangering the public if they get spooked or panicked.
The new arguments are not faring much better, since no horse is known to suffer from respiratory disease, according to regular veterinary checks, and no human being has ever been killed by a carriage horse, not one in 150 years. Hundreds of people in New York die each year in motor vehicle and bicycle accidents.
The life of the border collie offers guidance and insight for well-meaning animal lovers seeking to get to the real issues for animals in the carriage horse controversy, those beyond jobs and business regulation. Draft horses are the border collies of the equine world, unlike many horses they have been bred to work with people for thousands of years, almost all of that time doing labor that is dramatically harder and more intense than anything a carriage horse ever has to do in Central Park in our time.
They have never lived in the wild and being so large and vulnerable, would not last long there, they would starve to death or be eaten. It is not freedom that they need, it is care and work.
Equine advocates will testify, as will border collie breeders, that it is actually cruel for carriage horses to be denied work and activity, just as it is cruel for border collies to be denied work. Denying work to working animals is in many ways the new abuse. It is an awful thing to see, working animals will become sluggish, overweight and disoriented without work. I believe this so strongly that when I got my first border collie, I bought some sheep and then bought a farm in upstate New York. I love this breed and was do determined to give them the lives they deserve, that I have sheep still, and Red works with them every day of his life. He is a therapy dog to boot, he works almost all of the time. And his work is celebrated, not condemned, by everyone who sees it.
I can’t imagine a crueler fate for him than to be banished to a rescue farm where he had nothing to do all day but sit around a pasture and eat. Like the famed horse trainer Buck Brannaman (the inspiration for the movie “Horse Whisperer”), I can’t imagine a worse fate for a carriage horse, especially in the name of animal rights. This notion of what a horse needs is, in my view, is a demonstrably ignorant and emotionalized fantasy.
Red would deteriorate rapidly from lack of exercise, focus, work and connection with human beings. This is what he was bred to do, what he needs to do to be healthy and sound. There are three substantial differences between a carriage horse and a border collie. Carriage horses are bigger and stronger, they are not as smart as a border collie or as intense, and they are much better suited to urban life.
The famed biologist Jared Diamond has written that working horses, of all the animals in the world, including dogs and cats, are the best animals suited to live and work in urban environments. They are the “most domesticable” because of their gentle nature, their herding instincts, their tolerance for other species, their connection to human beings, and their genetic appetite for work. Many people have told me they know the carriage horses are sad because they stand in line with their heads down and a rear leg cocked. They simply do not know that this is the relaxed – content – position of a horse. Horses that are abused or frightened or restless do not stand like that and do not look like that.
Diamond writes that a phenomenon he calls “creeping normality” keeps us from seeing things like environmental degradation, or the loss of animals from the natural world. Instead of banning horses, a moral government would be working hard to keep them safe and present among us. The problem in the animal rights movement, and in many urban communities disconnected from the animal world, is that people no longer know the difference between a border collie and a carriage horse, nor do they know what makes them so much alike.
In the carriage horse controversy, I like to think I am supporting the horses, I like to think I am supporting the carriage drivers. I hope I am. I am also supporting my own right to live with my animals in freedom and in serenity, so long as I do not mistreat or abuse them.
If the carriage horses are being abused, then so is Red. If they can ban the carriage horses, and the elephants, and the ponies, and the horses in Hollywood, then they will one day come for Red and all of the animals who work with us and who have shared the joys and travails of the would with us since the dawn of time. They will all continue to disappear. I see now that for reasons I don’t quite comprehend, this is the goal of the modern-day animal rights movement, not a side affect. Every animal is a victim, every human an abuser.
Thomas Jefferson wrote that personal freedom is as fragile as it is precious. It can die in a swift stroke, or it can suffer death by “a thousand cuts.” I believe the social movement that calls itself an animal rights movement is diminishing our personal freedom to live with animals, and that the right of animals to live and work in our world is dying by a thousand cuts. That is why the carriage horse controversy is so important.
For me, someone who calls himself an animal lover, someone who believes in the rights of animals in our world, the most sensitive and critically important issue involving the New York City Carriage Horses is this – what will happen to them if the city bans them from New York.
Whether one believes the horses should remain in the city or not, there is this looming thing, this elephant in the room, the most emotional and explosive question: Will the horses be better off when they are banished than they are now? If this is all about the welfare of the horses, isn’t this really the only question that matters, if we are sincerely worried about their rights?
It isn’t an issue, it is the issue. The future of the horses, the fate of these beautiful animals speaks to the future of animals in our world, conflicting notions of what is truly best for them, what place, if any, we can make for them, and the very meaning and nature of the “rescue” idea. It is always for them, is it often for us?
The people pushing for the ban seem to react furiously to the question, they do not care to talk about it. They argue that it doesn’t matter, there is no excuse or justification for preserving an abusive and inhumane business. Since only one person in the carriage industry has been legally accused of abuse or neglect in 150 years, and few objective observers believe the horses are treated inhumanely, that is also a tricky argument to make stick, although in fairness, a lot of people in New York City have come to believe it. Since only one horse has been killed in 20 years (and 155 New Yorkers were killed in 2012 alone) it is also hard to make the case that the city is really getting more and more unsafe for them, although the mayor has bought that argument as well. So what do we know about the truth regarding the horses and their future?
The mayor, the City Council, NYClass, the Coalition To Ban The Carriage Horses, the A.S.P.S.A. and the Humane Society have all issued various and wildly conflicting statements about the future of the horses if they are banned. Their general and nearly unanimous position is that no one – absolutely no one – will suffer from a ban. The carriage horse owners and drivers might disagree, so might the many people who love to ride the carriages, but they do not seem to have a voice in this argument.
The Humane Society calls a ban a “win-win” for everyone. Tourists will no longer be gouged by greedy drivers, horses will no longer be mowed down by trucks and cars, there will be no droppings in the park, traffic will flow more freely, carriage drivers will all be happy driving their new eco-friendly vintage carts around, tourists will love their quiet vintage cars, and most importantly, every single horse will be sent to a farm to spend the rest of their days in the sun, munching on fresh grass.
The truth is, of course, more complicated, and it is not simple to get near it, there is a thick fog of righteousness, argument and anger. I’ve been at it for a couple of weeks, I’m closer. I’ll give it my best and most dispassionate shot.
The most important thing to keep in mind is this: no one knows, really, what will happen to the horses because no one has seen the legislation that will soon be introduced into the City Council seeking to end the Carriage Horse trade. If previous legislation offered by animal rights groups is any clue, the City Council may forbid the carriage horse owners to sell their horses for any kind of work or slaughter. The horses can only be sold to rescue farms or private farms or sanctuaries where they will not be permitted to do any kind of work. I can’t quite imagine how this would be enforced, even it it passes. One previous proposal was worded this way: “The owner shall sell or donate a horse to a private individual who signs an assurance that the horse will not be sold and shall be kept solely as a companion animal and not employed in another horse-drawn carriage business or as a work horse and will be cared for humanely for the remainder of the horse’s natural life…”
Legal experts say it is highly unlikely the courts will permit the city or animal rights groups to tell the carriage owners how to dispose of the horses they own. The owners themselves say if they have to dispose of the horses, some will go to their farms, others will be sold if possible, some will almost certainly be sent to slaughter.
One irony is that many of the horses pulling carriages are rescue horses purchased from race courses and mostly Amish farms where they were often headed for slaughter. Shutting down the city stables might very well have the unintended affect of eliminating a rare outlet for surplus horses, according to a story published by the Associated Press. “If they did not come to New York City, most of these horses would be dead,” says Ian McKeever, who owns nine Central Park horses and has been driving a carriage in the city since 1987.
This is borne out by the fact that in 2013, roughly 140,000 U.S. horses were shipped to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico, most traveled and died under far worse circumstances than those of any working horse in the city. It is hard to understand why animal rights groups would be funneling more horses into this bloody chain. According to the Humane Society itself – I wonder if they read their own reports – unregulated breeding has led to the production of farm more horses than can find work, homes, or life-time care. There are about 500 sanctuaries in the U.S. for retired horses, many are overwhelmed caring for equines – including donkeys – many thousands of which have been abandoned since the recession. These facilities are notoriously under-funded and short staffed. It is unlikely that more than 200 large, healthy, active working horses will find a place on rescue facilities that can accommodate them – they eat at least two bales of hay a day – when so many thousands of equines can’t. And if they do, it is even less likely the conditions they will live under will be better than the highly regulated environments they live in now.
The Associated Press says that in Pennsylvania’s Amish Country, where many of the carriage horses come from, hundreds of horses are sold to buyers for foreign meat factories every Monday at auction, these are mostly horses that are young and healthy and once pulled plows, buggies and carts, or even served as family pets. These horses were discarded because of the rising costs of care or because there was no longer any work for them to do. A number of the carriage horses were, in fact, saved from that fate. It is well known and understood among people who live with animals and love them that work saves the lives of well-treated working animals, it does not end, damage, or shorten them. The implications of this conflict are enormous for animals and the people who own them.
I wonder if the day will come when my town government will tell me that I will have to sell or give my border collie Red to a rescue farm or sanctuary so that he can never be asked to herd sheep again.
The carriage horse owners say that if the carriage horses are banned without restriction, most will likely be sold to other working homes – like carriage companies in Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, Cincinnati or San Antonio. Some might be sold back to farm work, others retired to the owner’s farms. The horses are generally purchased for $2,000 to $4,000, ten times what a “kill” buyer would pay for a horse as meat. It seems likely that people who have just lost their income and work might need or want to sell horses that valuable, not give them away to rescue farms, where they are not statistically, likely to live longer or be healthier than working carriage horses.
It seems especially cruel and punitive to destroy people’s businesses – none have been charged with any crimes or wrongdoing – and also deny them the right to seek reimbursement for their property or the opportunity to decide the fate of their own animals. None have been charged with abuse or convicted of it, there seems no moral rationale for denying them ownership of their horses. The horses are private property, it is unheard of for municipal governments to dictate the disposal of private property in that way, but then, carriage horses have never been banned from a major American city before.
The Humane Society Of The United States, a vocal advocate for the carriage ban and a growing financial supporter of the animal rights movement, including some of the groups pushing for the ban, claims that it has made provisions for “some” – they do not say how many – of the horses to go to a wealthy horse ranch in Texas. The problem with that kind of vague promise is that the horses are not theirs to provide for, they cannot possibly offer any guarantees or determine what happens to them. The animal rights group NY Class, spearheading the proposed ban, says it plans buy all of the horses for $500 each, an ingenuous offer given their worth and the certainty the owners will reject it. The group also claims to have farms waiting for each horse, but it offers no specifics of any kind.
These kinds of very fuzzy declarations – how many is “some”, who pays the owners for them – undermine the credibility of any genuine or knowing commitment to animal welfare, it would seem their foremost concern would be the horses. But the well-being of the horses seems the lowest priority, not the first.
Christina Hansen, a driver and spokesperson for the carriage horse industry speaks to some of these concerns in her own op-ed piece, published in the New York Post this morning. She challenges some of the most common misconceptions about the carriage horses, all of which have been widely disseminated in the media. Full disclosure: I just met Christina once, talked to her a number of times, I have found her to be honest and reliable in her statements. She is measured and direct when speaking about this controversy. Although she is clearly not unbiased – she works for the carriage horse industry, I recognized her right away as a horse lover. I have seen so many animal lovers in the course of writing my books, I can spot them miles away. Christina is the real deal. Everything she has told me has checked out, has turned out to be verifiable and accurate. She does not hide her own name or sources under the name of “security,” and she has good reason, she is shouted at, followed and protested all of the time.
The Coalition To Ban Carriage horses claims to have done an analysis drawn from city records on 720 carriage horses from 2005 to 2013 that show that about 30 per cent of the horses spent two years or less on the job, thus they won’t be around long anyway. The carriage horse owners vehemently deny that, saying the carriage horses live an average of between 20 and 30 years and work for much longer periods. Their records are open to public scrutiny, as are their stables. In recent weeks, a number of reporters have finally decided to walk in unannounced and taken a look, including one recently from NPR. All have found the stables clean, the horses well-cared for. The websites of the animal rights groups repeatedly claim the stables are filthy, the horses underfed and unable to lie down, that there is no fire protection. None of these claims have been verified by anyone who has seen the stables or the horses.
I have to add that the Coalition To Ban The Carriage Horses refuses to identify any of their sources, methods, investigators, researchers or writers, claiming “security” concerns (funny, there are no reports of anyone picketing or shouting at them on the streets). I have attempted to verify a number of the claims they have made, there is no way to substantiate them, and many of their claims are demonstrably and provably false. The group is widely quoted by the New York media in many articles about the horses. The City of New York seems to have no knowledge of any such study that I can find.
The animal rights organizations – and the mayor and City Council – are united in their belief that the horses should never again be permitted to work and that work for all animals is cruel, a form of abuse. I’m eager for the inevitable debate about police horses, K-9 patrols, bomb-sniffing dogs, therapy and seeing-eye dogs. The people who are lobbying for the ban do not seem aware of the fact that horses on rescue farms or out on pasture often get ill – colic, infections, lameness, elements, predators, foundering – and that according to most vets, behavioral studies, and some of the Humane Society’s own studies and statistics, horses on rescue farms do not live nearly as long as most carriage horses or other working horses do.
The sad reality – as any animal lover or rescuer knows – is that just because a farm or preserve has the name “rescue” in it, there is no guarantee of a healthy or humane environment. Through no fault of their own, many rescue facilities – I have seen more than a few, as have so many of the people reading this – are notoriously crowded, under-funded, overwhelmed by old and sick animals. None of them are as closely supervised and monitored as the carriage horse stables in New York, few offer green grass for horses to graze on all day.
I want to be honest about how I feel, I think it is a tragedy for working animals – especially these horses – to be deprived of their rapidly dwindling opportunity to work and live among human beings. Don’t animal lovers want to be around animals, not send them a way? Banning work for these horses is not saving them, it is dooming them.
For animals like horses in the modern world, work equals survival, it is really as simple as that. When we no longer see them or need them in any way, they will go the way of so many other species and vanish from our world. There is plenty of precedents, too many. The new idea of animal rights for the horses is that they be taken from their stables and work and sentenced to ghettoized enclaves where they will vanish from public consciousness and have no relevance to our lives in order for people to feel good and morally superior to other people. I can’t imagine how this could be healthy for them, for us, for the magic they offer visitors and children, or for a city that values condos and trucks more than the animals who have shared our world throughout our history.
The truth is we don’t really know yet what will happen to these horses if their industry is banned. Anyone who says they can guarantee safe passage for them is not telling the truth. Until the City Council legislation is offered and made public, we will only have to guess. It seems the most honest and realistic prediction would be this: some will go to their owner’s farms, some will be sold to other carriage owners and drivers, some will be sold back to farms, some will be sent to slaughter. A few might even go to rescue farms, if you want to call them lucky.
One of the core ideas driving the animal rights groups and much of the rhetoric coming from the city’s politicians in pushing for the ban is the urban myth of the rescue farm, a sort of Disney World for big horses where they can romp like the horses in the John Ford movies and graze all day long and ride into beautiful sunsets. If you live in New York City, the appeal is obvious and understandable, since few people ever see animals or rescue farms. But it is still a myth. This Nirvana is not real, it will not be the fate or the sylvan future for these big, banned and very active horses.
The bottom line for me is the same as it was when I first encountered the issue. If this is really about the horses, if this is a good thing for the horses, than the lives of the horses have to be better, not worse, certain and clear, not cloudy, the first priority, not the last. I don’t see any evidence their lives will be safer, healthier or in any meaningful way improved, or that the people pushing for their removal are much concerned about what happens in the future, only a political and ideological victory now. The lives of the horses will be a crapshoot, an equine form of Russian Roulette, some might survive, others might not.
The first thing I ever wrote about the carriage horses seems more certain than I realized: many of the horses will be sacrificed in order to be saved from a life where they are prized, cared for, healthy and valued and live among people, their true partners on the earth if they might survive.
Those truly concerned with the horses welfare might consider new and more convenient stables, traffic-free lanes, as there for cyclists, space in the park for them to be outside. Wouldn’t those meet all of the concerns of people who say they no longer belong in New York?
Those ideas are not being discussed or considered. I suppose the real tragedy is not only what may happen to the horses, but what the very notion of what so many people believe animal rights really mean.
