Is New York City ready to say 'neigh' to Central Park's carriage horses?

New York City’s next mayor will likely be forced to decide on the future of Central Park’s carriage horse industry, a long controversial topic that’s been thrust back into the political fray after an aging steed collapsed and died on a Midtown street earlier this month.

The issue has dogged political races in the city for decades. Animal rights advocates argue that having horses pull tourists in carriages through Manhattan’s most famous park is a form of abuse. But the city’s roughly 230 carriage horse drivers argue the animals receive top-notch care, and say the carriages are an iconic part of the park’s history.

The animal rights group NYCLASS supported and donated to former Mayor Bill de Blasio's winning mayoral run in 2013 after he vowed to ban the horses from the park. He never made good on that promise during his eight years in office. Now, nearly every candidate with a chance to win November’s general election is largely skirting the topic.

Republican Curtis Sliwa is the only candidate who has taken a clear position on the issue, while Mayor Eric Adams has said that he’s trying to broker a compromise between the two sides that have been at war for decades. Neither Zohran Mamdani nor Andrew Cuomo have said if they would shut down the industry.

The strongest advocates for phasing out the industry said they’re not backing anyone until the right candidate emerges.

“We are waiting to support the right candidate,” said NYCLASS Executive Director Edita Birnkrant. "They squeeze every dollar out of these horses that in many cases are too sick, injured or old to even be on the streets in the first place, and then they just throw them away like garbage.”

But for the first time ever, leaders at the Central Park Conservancy have firmly called for banning the carriage horse practices. The group’s President Betsy Smith wrote in a letter to Adams that spooked horses too often cause chaos in the park and that they accelerate wear to the pavement.

“The Conservancy is deeply familiar with the history of Central Park and are often the first to raise our voice to protect it from intrusions that detract from that history,” the letter said. “But our paramount concern is for the health and safety of the people who love the park, and it is in their name that we respectfully request that we turn the page on horse carriages, just as other major cities across the globe already have. It is time.”

The powerful Transport Workers Union, which represents a majority of the city’s transit workers as well as the Central Park carriage horse drivers, on Tuesday staged a protest outside the office of Councilmember Erik Bottcher — whose Manhattan district houses a majority of the city’s carriage horse stables — over his support to kick the animals out of the park.

TWU Local 100 President John Chiarello set his sights on Smith at the protest, saying ”she wants to ban the horses from the park, the most iconic thing to Central Park,” he said.

Chiarello made his own appeal to the mayor. “We need help with this.  We need his intervention,” he said.

The union endorsed Adams in 2021 but hasn’t announced whom it's backing in November’s mayoral election.

A spokesperson for Sliwa said the Republican candidate would replace the horses with a motorized alternative and train the carriage drivers to use them. De Blasio floated a similar proposal during the final months of his administration in 2021. Spokespeople for Cuomo and Mamdani didn’t return requests for comment.

TWU International President John Samuelsen defended carriage drivers and said the industry's opponents are misinformed. He said Sliwa’s position was “born out of ignorance.”

“He's never been to the stables once,” he said.

Samuelsen said he made the union’s position on the horses clear to Mamdani before the primary, and that he hopes he’ll visit the stables. But for now, he said the union’s clearest path forward is to push Adams to make a decision on the industry's future before his term expires at the end of the year.

“We are working on a safe passage of the horses into the park itself. Eric [Adams'] position is pretty clear: He is with the workers,” Samuelsen said, referring to plans that would relocate the stables from the streets of Manhattan to within Central Park.

Adams said earlier this month that First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro was working on the issue and that he’d have news on a decision soon.

Bottcher said in a statement he’s committed to ending the practice.

“Forcing animals to pull tourist carriages nose-to-tailpipe in Midtown traffic, surrounded by blaring horns and choking exhaust, is not right,” he said.