[music]

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. The horse-drawn carriage debate is back and rising in New York City. The horse-drawn carriage ride has long been considered an iconic New York City experience, but animal rights groups, and now New York City Council member, Robert Holden, have been calling for the horse-drawn carriage industry, which they characterize as cruel, to end altogether, as the executive director for New Yorkers for clean, livable, and safe streets known by the acronym NYCLASS, said to the New York Post recently, the year is 2022, not 1822.

Earlier this month, you've probably heard, a New York City carriage horse named Ryder, that's Ryder with a Y, collapsed in Hell's Kitchen. The incident was captured and went viral on video. The Transport Workers Union said that the horse was 14 years old and was not suffering from heat exhaustion, but rather from a neurological disease, but as my next guest has reported, the vet who examined Ryder after his collapse said the horse was actually 26 years old, 12 years older than had been reported by the union. The vet also said that in addition to the neurological disease, Ryder was malnourished and should not have been working at all.

With us now is Catalina Gonella, a reporter here at WNYC and Gothamist, who's been covering this. Hi, Catalina. Thanks for coming on. Welcome back to the show.

Catalina Gonella: Hi, Brian. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Can you tell everybody more about Ryder first, if they haven't seen the video or haven't heard this particular story and his collapse a few weeks ago and whether this was something that happens more often than we'd like to think and this one just happened to get caught on video so everybody seen it, or if it's rare.

Catalina Gonella: Sure. Yes, Ryder, he's a standardbred horse. He's new to the industry. He started in April and towards the end of his shift on August 10th, he was heading back to the stable with his driver when he collapsed. It was a pretty hot day, but it wasn't quite as hot in order for him to not be able to work, but when he collapsed, obviously, it drew a crowd, people started taking videos, and because it was a pretty hot day, naturally it was assumed that he had overheated.

The police officers who were there began to hose him down, they got ice from nearby restaurants according to people I spoke to who were there, and eventually they were able to get him back up and transported back to his stable. That's when a vet, who was called in from Long Island, went to go see him. His name is Dr. Camilo Sierra, he's who I spoke to, who said that he saw Ryder that day. He told me that Ryder looked skinny, he looked weak. He was alert and up when he saw him. He was looking okay, but again, just really, really skinny for his size.

Dr. Sierra, by looking at his teeth, was able to tell that he was actually older than it was originally reported. He was reported to have been 14 back in April, and Dr. Sierra said that he looked older, he looked to his eyes 20 to 30, and when he checked in with the Retired Standardbred Foundation, it revealed that he was actually 26. That's what happened that day.

Brian Lehrer: Is there an allegation that that was a cover-up by the union. People may be confused by hearing Transport Workers Union. It's the same union that represents subway conductors and bus drivers that represents the carriage horse drivers?

Catalina Gonella: Yes, exactly, and it's a pretty powerful union in New York, so, yes. The activists in this situation, the ones with NYCLASS, are saying that they think it's a cover-up. It's unclear where the cover-up would be coming from. Is it the seller who sold this horse to the owner who said that he was younger or did the carriage drivers also know this and were they in on it? It's a little bit unclear, but that's, yes, what the activists would say, is that it is a coverup. I spoke to a driver who did say that they knew that night that Dr. Sierra had said that he looked older and since then it was still reported that he was 14 because it wasn't yet confirmed, but it has since been confirmed that he was actually 26.

Brian Lehrer: City Council member, Robert Holden from Queens, introduced a bill that would replace horse-drawn carriages with electric ones beginning in June of 2024, and guess what? Councilmember Holden is calling in. I'm going to take his call. Councilmember Robert Holden, last on this show just a few weeks ago in our 51 Council Members in 52 Weeks series. Councilmember, thank you for calling in on this.

Robert Holden: Oh, great to be back. Yes, this is a terrible, terrible situation. By the way, they knew that the horse was older. Actually, someone quoted to a reporter in New York Post that the owner knew that the horse was older and that he was trying to squeeze everything out of the horse. That's the kind of attitude we have with many of the drivers, unfortunately, and by the way, there's breaking news on this, that someone got into the stables at 38th Street and videotaped the conditions. We see more Ryders in there, meaning that the horses are malnourished, very, very tight quarters, by the way, the horse can't even turn around. That's how tight it is.

It's disgraceful and horrible conditions there. This story keeps going because it's showing the abuse. First of all, for the whole industry to turn the other way and say, "We don't know the conditions of our horses," and to deny that they knew that that horse was between 28 and 30, that means they're lying or that they just don't know how to take care of a horse. Certainly, when you see the videos, and they're going to surface right away, we're giving it to the press, that this is a massive, massive cover-up and a scandal because these conditions are so horrendous that no horse should be put in this situation to just go into a very small stall every day and then work in tremendous heat, and again, malnourished horses. Ryder is not the only one. This is disgraceful. New York City is better than this.

Brian Lehrer: Well, Catalina, there's your work for the afternoon. I guess you have another video coming on your beat, but in the industry's defense, Councilman, the Transport Workers Union says the city has extremely strict regulations when it comes to carriage horses. For one thing, they say they get at least five weeks vacation on "vacation farms." That's more than most people in this country get. Horses get new shoes every four to six weeks, a vet visits them two to four times a year, they say, and the horses are not legally allowed to work in extreme heat. Do those things matter?

Robert Holden: No, it doesn't matter because first of all, the department of health, two weeks ago I wrote a letter, haven't gotten an answer, nobody is giving us answers. I don't believe the department of health has been focusing on this at all because of the pandemic. If we don't know how often the horses are being checked, how did Ryder-- By the way, Ryder didn't get this way overnight.

Months went by and this horse was malnourished, their own doctor, Dr. Sierra, who is probably not the best spokesperson for this because he's paid by the industry and the union, but when your own vet says this horse is malnourished and older, and by the way, they're not supposed to work after 26, the horses, that's against the law, and the horse was working and in terrible conditions.

Then again, once you see the video, you're not going to question that these horses are treated well. If the department of health says, or the union says these horses are checked, there's strict regulations, they get five weeks vacation, let's see the vacation they get. We're learning now that the vacation is miserable also, that they're not just running in the fields. This is all a huge, huge cover-up.

Brian Lehrer: Is there any way, in your opinion, to have a horse-drawn carriage industry that is humane to the horses. I think a lot of lay people, a lot of listeners, city kids like us who never had much experience with horses at all except seeing them in movies where they were drawing carriages all the time in the old west and in old New York, or maybe we go to horseback riding activities in summer camp or something like that might think, "Well, it's not inherently cruel, is it? For a horse to pull a carriage with a driver and a couple of tourists or whoever." It should be able to be done humanely in some way, or is it your position that that's not the case?

Robert Holden: First of all, it's not possible in New York City, in Manhattan. Unless the horses have a place to run, and unless they could run together as a pack. Again, this is New York City, Manhattan. This is not the country. If this was in the country, maybe horses could-- At least if they had time to run around-- If you look at the conditions of the stable on West 38th Street, if anybody goes there and says, "This is a great place to stay," when the horses can't even turn around, they can't lay down--

These are very, very tight stalls, and the horses were in poor condition, very poor condition. I'm not an expert, but when I see the ribs of a horse, and I see a horse that looks malnourished-- People, by the way, saw Ryder-- We had a young woman who saw Ryder and videotaped this horse four hours earlier struggling in Central Park. The conditions in Manhattan are not good for a horse, period. Let's stop pretending.

We did away with the circus and certainly rodeos in New York City. It's the same thing. Just for the entertainment, a carriage ride, we're going to put these horses through these conditions in New York City, and we can't rely on the union, and we can't rely on the drivers to do the right thing. We saw that with Ryder, and we're seeing with all the horses. Again, once you see the video of the stables on West 38th, you'll feel the same way.

Brian Lehrer: Councilmember, let me ask you one more question, and it's a political question. You remember, some of our listeners will remember that this was a big issue in the 2013 mayoral campaign. The group that is calling for a long time for this industry to be banned was a big supporter of Mayor de Blasio. They really targeted Christine Quinn, the former City Council speaker, who at one point, was believed to be the frontrunner in that race, that really hurt her. Then de Blasio was elected, and here we are, all these years later, nine years later, and they never did ban the horse-drawn carriage industry. Why has this been so hard politically in City Council in which you serve?

Robert Holden: I spoke to Danny Dromm, who carried the bill originally in 2014, and he said we had 26 votes, we had 26 co-sponsors. What happened, at that time, the teamsters then started picking off the council members. That means they were threatening not to support them if they ran. Again, I think all elected officials have to have a backbone and stand up and not worry about whether they're getting union support.

Worry about the conditions of these horses. That's what I'm doing and nobody's going to dissuade me from that because I see the conditions. We see it every day. This is not the proper thing. No elected official should be intimidated and be told what to do or how to vote by anyone. They have to, again, dig down deep into their-- look into their heart and say, "This is not right for a carriage ride for some tourists, just so they can say, oh, they rode a carriage in New York. By the way, if you look at the horseless electric carriage, they're very charming. They're a carriage minus the horse. What's the problem with that?

Brian Lehrer: City Council member Robert Holden from Queens, thank you for calling in on this. I really appreciate you chiming in on the bill that you're sponsoring to convert to electric carriage rides. We continue for a few more minutes with WNYC and Gothamist reporter, Catalina Gonella, who's been on this beat. Well, Catalina, for one thing, it sounds like we have another round of video-driven media coverage coming with that video that the Councilmember was describing from the stables on 38th Street.

Catalina Gonella: Yes, absolutely. I'll have to take a look at those. I'm sure we'll be seeing more coverage.

Brian Lehrer: Are you aware of Mayor Adams' position on this? I don't know it. I don't know if his support would matter. Mayor de Blasio supported ending this industry, but it never happened. Do you know if Mayor Adams has weighed in?

Catalina Gonella: He weighed in before he took office. A spokesperson gave comment, but more recently, he hasn't. I'm actually waiting for his spokesperson to get back to me on that. I'll definitely have an update on that soon.

Brian Lehrer: Here's somebody calling in who opposes the ban and not from Midtown Manhattan. John in Paris, France, you're on WNYC. Hi, John.

John: Hi.

Brian Lehrer: What's your connection to this? Are you a New Yorker who just happens to be in Paris right now?

John: I retired to Paris about 9, 10 months ago, but I'm coming back. I miss New York. I love New York, and I love the West Side. The West Side's the best side.

Brian Lehrer: Well, I'm glad you're still listening to the show over there. You heard the Councilmember, did he change your mind on this, or why do you think they should continue with carriage horses?

John: I used to teach horseback riding at Claremont Stables [unintelligible 00:15:37] Central Park. Every time something happens to a carriage horse, they blame the stables. When a horse gets hit by a car, they say the horses should be banned. Pedestrians get hit by cars, we don't ban pedestrians from New York. Horses are herd animals, they're meant to be useful. [unintelligible 00:15:59] the stable [unintelligible 00:16:05] horses. The pathways and the roadways in Central Park were built for carriages, not for electric cars. The idea is to keep alive this service in New York.

Brian Lehrer: John, thank you for chiming in. We appreciate it. We're going to go to another caller. Marilyn in Nassau County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Marilyn.

Marilyn: Hi, how are you? The public has a very short memory, and right now, everyone is focusing on Ryder, but these accidents happen constantly. Less than two months ago, another horse collapsed and died on the street, I believe, crashed into a car. Two years ago, a horse named Aisha collapsed and died. I was at a vigil for Aisha in Central Park. They actually blew cigarette smoke into her face to try to get her to stand up. There was another horse named Chief. Four horses in recent months have collapsed.

Ryder is not an isolated case. These horses are treated like machinery and not animals. There's nothing about these horses that make them made to carry carriages. These are elderly horses that are purchased at auctions from the Amish or from the race industry when they're not considered profitable, so they're already old, they're taken away from their surroundings and anyone that they know. They are equipped with all this machinery and apparatus on them that constantly irritates, rubs on their skin, the bit in their mouth, the blinders on their eyes.

No one mentions that the carriage that they pull weighs a minimum of 3,000 pounds when it's empty, but if you add 4 passengers weighing 200 pounds each and a driver, that's an additional 1,000 pounds. Just because these poor animals can pull it, doesn't mean that they should be pulling it. They have people overseeing the industry that are within the industry. It's like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. Christine Hansen, who is the spokesperson who always is interviewed after an incident, she lies about everything. We have caught her in so many lies.

There was a vote two years ago. The horses aren't allowed to work under certain temperatures or above certain temperatures, but at the time, wind chill factor wasn't taken into consideration, so there was a bill to amend that. We were waiting outside of City Hall for that to be voted on. Christina Hansen flagrantly just rode her carriage horse right down the street when she wasn't supposed to leave Central Park, right down Lower Manhattan. She just broke the law knowing she was doing it without any fear of repercussion because nobody goes after them. They just get-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Marilyn, thank you very much for your call. Listeners, you know how in a political debate, if your opponent gets namechecked, then you get the next word? Well, it just so happens that that person, Christina Hansen, who's the shop steward for the TWU for these carriage drivers, is calling in. We're getting all the principals in this story calling in. Catalina, I'm sorry in a way that we had a nice reporter segment for you, and now all the principals are chiming in and getting most of the airtime. [chuckles]

Catalina Gonella: No, it's all good.

Brian Lehrer: We heard from Councilman Holden, who's sponsoring the bill to ban this industry, and now we heard a couple of other callers, and now, sure enough, Christina Hansen is calling in, shop steward for the TWU carriage horse drivers. Christina, hi, thank you for calling.

Christina Hansen: Hi. Thanks, Brian, thanks, Catalina for letting me on. As you guys know as New Yorkers, this is like this political football that's been going on for 40 years here in New York City. When you asked Councilmember Holden why haven't these ban bills gone through, it's because every time there's been a ban bill, there's been a hearing, and what the city has found when working with the Health Department and with equine vets, not just our equine vets, but equine vets from all over the country who have come in and looked at our horses and their stables, and there living in working conditions and said, "There's not a problem here with the humane welfare of the horses."

As you can tell from listening to all the callers, there are these strong ideological differences that go back and forth about should horses be used for entertainment? Should they be in the city? What about police horses? What about riding horses from Claremont Riding Academy? What about the fact that it is legal to drive or ride a horse in all New York City streets, except for bridges, tunnels, and controlled-access highways? We are a city that was built by horses. It's had horses here since 1625 and horses being the magnificent animals that they are, evoke a lot of emotions in a lot of different people.

It becomes difficult for all the emotions to actually assess the facts like Marilyn was saying that the carriages weigh 3,000 pounds. They weigh 1,000 pounds empty, they're on wheels. Just basic facts like that, that there was no horse that collapsed and died in the streets this summer, but she thinks there is because she's in this internet, social media environment. If I believe the things that she believes, I would be upset too. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Well, let me ask you two follow-up questions. We're almost out of time for the segment, but one, the reporting seems to indicate that the union got caught in a lie about the age of the horse, Ryder, that collapsed, a 12-year lie, 26 years old, not 14. Then I want to get your pre-action, because I assume you haven't seen the video yet, to this video that the Councilmember mentioned that I guess is going to be released to the media this afternoon showing-

Catalina Gonella: I actually did receive it.

Brian Lehrer: -what he described as horrific conditions in the stable on 38th Street.

Christina Hansen: The first thing, the horses are inspected twice a year by licensed equine vets, and Ryder was inspected by the veterinarian in April. The age on his paperwork was 13. That was what was provided to the city. It was based on what the seller had sold the horse as, it's based on what the vet had put down. There's 200 licensed carriage horses in New York City. Ryder is just one of them. When Dr. Sierra arrived, I was at the stable when the horse was brought there by mounting unit. The question is how old is this horse? I said, "Well, what does the paperwork say?" Then the driver said, "I have 13, 14." Something like that. That's what we were telling people when we were asked because that's what we know.

It has since come to light from further examination that that was not true, but it wasn't the carriage industry that was deliberately misleading anybody. This was what if you called up the Health Department and asked them how old was this horse, they would've said, but again, there's so many high emotions that [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: That's your version of that. Have you seen this video?

Christina Hansen: I have not seen the video. I will say that every New York City carriage stable is required to have box stalls large enough for the horses to turn around, lie down comfortably in, they have standards that are outlined by the Department of Health about cleanliness, space, food, water, everything like that, and that the Health Department city vet that was contracted by the city was in the stable on Saturday, inspected all the carriage stables and the carriage [unintelligible 00:24:28] We do have this set of regulations [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Let me throw in one more. You're a union leader obviously. No union leader wants to see their members lose jobs. If they convert to electric carriages, would you have the same number of people in the same positions? It would be zero job loss or is job loss an issue here?

Christina Hansen: Job loss is absolutely an issue. First of all, the horses lose their jobs. My interest and the interest of my horses are in alignment. That's how we live and work together and we work cooperative together so that we all get our bills paid.

Brian Lehrer: The horses don't want the job though. The horses don't want this job.

Christina Hansen: [crosstalk] No, you try to make a horse that doesn't want to be here do anything. You can't. Anybody who's actually worked with horses knows that they have to give their consent to do anything you ask them to do. Obviously, the police horses do this happily, the carriage horses do this happily. Horses, they've been bred for thousands of years to work alongside us, the same way that dogs and cats have. Like a herding dog likes to herd sheets. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: The drivers?

Christina Hansen: [unintelligible 00:25:45] The drivers, we chose this job because we're horse people. We want to work with horses. We don't want to drive some sort of flimsy, electric, unsafe vehicle that what little bit it's been tested, has been an utter failure. These were introduced in July in Mérida Mexico, alongside four strong carriages there, and there's been nothing but problems reported by those carriage drivers there who have adopted these vehicles. They don't have the right battery charge, people won't ride in them because they're worried about safety, [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: You would have fewer drivers necessary after that conversion?

Christina Hansen: Well, it's not even a viable business. If you read the bill, it would take carriage owners who own their license and their carriage and their horses, they're small business owners and force them to lease these electric carriages from the city. Now they no longer own their business. Then they would take the carriage drivers and we have a lot of owner-operators in our business currently. It would take the independent contractors who set their own schedule, choose which carriage owners they're going to work for and everything like that. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: I see. It would be [unintelligible 00:27:02] in that respect.

Christina Hansen: It would change the entire nature of the business-

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to have to leave it there because we're out of time.

Christina Hansen: -by taking independent contractors and making them-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Christina Hansen-

Christina Hansen: I encourage everybody to read the entire bill.

Brian Lehrer: -shop steward with the TWU drivers of the horse-drawn carriages. Thank you for chiming in. We're going to finish up with Catalina Gonella, the WNYC and Gothamist reporter who's been reporting on the horse carriage debate, and wow, Catalina, we had both sides chime in there, Councilmember Holden with his bill to ban the industry he called in and there was the shop steward representing the drivers who wants to save the industry. Did I hear you chime in that you have now seen the video of the stable on 38th Street?

Catalina Gonella: Yes. I received the video from Bob Holden's spokesperson as well as New York CLASS. Looking at the video, I'm not too familiar with other horse stables, so I can't say for sure definitively whether this is a good or bad one. The horses, some of them do look thin the way that Ryder was described to be, or I see some of their ribs, but I definitely would have to show this to someone more familiar with horses and horse stables. I'm being told by New York CLASS director editor that people who are more familiar with the horse stables say that they are not up to par with how they should be kept.

Brian Lehrer: This issue coming to a head in New York City right now, and Catalina Gonella covering it for WNYC and Gothamist. Catalina, thanks.

Catalina Gonella: Thank you, Brian.

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.