Rappaport To The Rescue

Jill Rappaport takes on one of New York City’s most controversial animal welfare issues: the future of NYC’s carriage horses. She is joined by Edita Birnkrant, Executive Director of NYCLASS (New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets), for a passionate discussion about the campaign to end horse-drawn carriages in New York City and give the horses a chance at a safer life.

Edita discusses the health, safety and welfare concerns surrounding carriage horses working in the congested streets of Manhattan, from traffic and extreme temperatures to limited living conditions and the risks posed when frightened horses bolt or collapse. She also shares the heartbreaking stories of carriage horses including Ryder and Lady, whose deaths intensified calls for change.

The conversation examines Ryder’s Law, proposed legislation aimed at ending the horse-drawn carriage industry while providing alternatives for carriage drivers. Jill and Edita discuss public support for ending the practice, the possibility of replacing horse-drawn carriages with electric alternatives, and the network of sanctuaries, rescue farms and individuals willing to provide homes for retired carriage horses.

Although Ryder’s Law failed to pass following the recording of this interview, Jill explains that the fight is far from over and that new legislation will likely be needed to continue efforts to end horse-drawn carriages in New York City.

Plus, cat correspondent Deborah Cribbs shares a holiday adoption idea: if your cat would benefit from a companion, consider adopting another cat—and help save another shelter pet in the process.

It’s an important conversation about NYC carriage horses, animal welfare, horse rescue and the continuing debate over whether horse-drawn carriages still belong on the streets of modern-day New York City.

Listen to Episode #73 Now:

Transcript:

Welcome to Rappaport to the Rescue, I'm Jill Rappaport. Today we're going to talk about a subject that truly gives me great pain and heartache, the carriage horses of New York City. I have been a resident in the Big Apple since the early 80s, and while the carriage horses have been a part of the landscape forever, it is something that has never sat right with me.

I cannot bear to look at those horses with all that gear wrapped around their heads and bodies, pulling multiple people in that huge carriage in the worst of conditions sometimes, and horrible temperatures. Not to mention all the noise and chaos as they're forced to go up and down those hard cement streets. I have never felt that this was something that should be allowed, and I think it is inhumane to all of the unfortunate horses that so sadly have been selected for this horrific job, which to date has tragically taken the lives of so many of our beloved horses.

We are going to talk with Edita Birnkrant. Now this is a lady that is truly doing something about this problem as the Executive Director of NYCLASS, which stands for New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets. This is such an important and life-saving discussion for our beautiful horses that definitely deserve better.

So if you love horses and care about their well-being, this is a discussion you do not want to miss. But on a breaking news note, and after we did this interview with Adita, Rider's Law, named after the carriage horse rider who collapsed and died in 2022, failed to pass just yesterday. But that does not mean that the push to end this inhumane treatment ends.

However, the next council will likely need to introduce a new bill and start this grueling and heartbreaking process all over again. So when we come back, you will hear all about what these horses are going through and why we still can help because we never can stop being the voice for the voiceless. Stay tuned.

Welcome back to Rappaport to the Rescue. I'm Jill Rappaport, and I am really happy to finally talk to someone that's doing something about a situation that has been just so heartbreaking for me to witness as a New Yorker for decades. Edita Birnkrant, I am so happy you are here, NY class, and this is such a horrific situation which, thank goodness, it looks like there may be a light at the end of this frightening tunnel.

Yes, thank you, Jill. I am so delighted that you have me on. I know how passionate you are about this, and we just want to also announce some news that there was a poll, a Zogby poll, that shows that 78 percent of a wide cross-section of New Yorkers support banning horse carriages that want rider's law passed.

Exactly. I just heard about this poll, and when you consider 78 percent, and they're opting for the electric carriages, that's what they want. They're not saying get rid of carriages, they just don't want horses pulling them.

I think, you know, people want any alternative that's a humane alternative. We already have pedicab tours of the park that are wildly popular, more popular, and actually there was an NPR piece that came out that there was a survey done by the reporter of tourists in the park, and the majority of them don't want to take a horse carriage ride. This is what we're hearing over and over.

There has been so many of these viral videos of horses dropping dead, running wild, injuring people, crashing. These videos go around the world. Millions and millions of people see them.

They don't want to come to New York City and risk their lives in a horse that could take off at any time and crash, or give money to a business that's neglecting and abusing horses. You know, we see in reports so many of them that are like basically crippled horses with disintegrating hooves, leg lameness, untreated injuries, arthritis. Many of them elderly horses that should already have been retired years ago that are just forced to pound the pavement, put into midtown traffic.

Their stabling is horrendous. Anyone who knows about horses, Jill, have you ever seen in modern-day stables that are multi-levels where horses are forced up steep ramps to live on upper levels of buildings? It doesn't exist in the modern era. Exactly, and I'm a pet parent to several horses in my own farm, and they live, I think in some cases, better than me.

I take care of their teeth more than I take care of mine, so I revere them for the majestic, beautiful animals they are, and I treat them the way they should be treated. So to witness this carriage horse situation, I can't even look at it because it breaks my heart so much. That's what 78% of New Yorkers feel, you know, and especially people who work or live near the park or in Hell's Kitchen, where just in August, a 15-year-old mare named Lady collapsed and dropped dead right in broad daylight, right on 11th Avenue and 45th Street.

This beautiful horse had just been a few weeks ago taken from a rural environment, thrown into the concrete jungle of New York City, collapsed shortly after leaving the stable. I mean, these horses are being worked to death. And you know that horses are pasture animals, they're herd animals, they're meant to be grazing.

When you look at their living and working conditions, if they're pulling carriages on the asphalt in Central Park, they're never touching grass. They go back to the far west side through the worst traffic, to these multi-level buildings, stables that do not and should not exist in the modern world because they're wildly unsafe and inhumane. There's no pasture for these animals.

There's no freedom of movement. Their stalls are only required to be 60 square feet. That is half the recommended size.

I mean, you know that horses need at least a 12 by 12, and if it's a large draft horse, they should have 14 by 14. 16 by 16, they should have what broodmares have. So imagine that only by law, 60 square feet.

That is heartbreaking. And that's their whole life. They're in this tiny solitary confinement prison cell.

They're never touching grass. They don't even have an exercise ring on dirt. They have nothing.

And the survey that was favored by 78 percent of New Yorkers, which is so wonderful, it's called Rider's Law. Now Rider was a horse that also collapsed and died. It was named after him.

Yes. Rider was a really heartbreaking situation, and I think it highlights the emergency situation here. So Rider was actually 26 years old, which is a senior horse.

His owner falsified and forged his health records to say he was 13. And Rider was found to be riddled with cancer and many other ailments. So they just mercilessly worked this elderly, sick horse with cancer until his body gave out on Hell's Kitchen on 9th Avenue.

And it became a worldwide outrage was generated. This heartbreaking video of this horse could not get up for an hour. NYPD mounted police took over.

They were hosing Rider. They were dumping ice on him. It took an hour to get him up.

And by the time he was given vet care, it was too late. He had cancer. He had all these untreatment ailments, and he later died.

And that's another case of a horse being worked to death. How on earth does a 26-year-old horse riddled with cancer even get approved to be worked, right? That work for the carriage owners just rubber-stamp these horses. They all get a perfect bill of health.

Lady, who dropped dead in August, got a perfect bill of health. Rider gets a perfect bill of health. There was a horse named Aisha a few years ago who also collapsed and later died.

She had an untreatment disease called polysaccharide storage myopathy, which is very rarely fatal. It's something that's treated with diet. All these horses just get no vet care.

But thanks to you as Executive Director of NYCLASS, things are moving in the right direction. Tell us about what we can hopefully look forward to. Well, we have incredible momentum, not only a majority of New Yorkers, but the Central Park Conservancy, which manages Central Park, in August came out very strongly urging the City Council to pass rider's law.

They have never taken a position on this. They don't usually take any political positions, but they felt so strongly after there were four violent runaway horse disasters in the park that injured park goers. People were nearly trampled.

They pointed out that the infrastructure of the park, the roads are damaged from these carriages, the manure poses a problem, the drivers don't follow the laws. They said in order to protect the well-being and safety of the park goers, you know, what is it 43 million people visit the park every year, you need to remove these carriages. So that's more momentum on our side.

We know that most tourists don't want to take these rides. We have 20 council members so far that have co-sponsored rider's law, but we need a hearing for rider's law. It's been blocked, unfortunately.

The Speaker of the Council, Speaker Adrian Adams, has blocked this legislation. It's outrageous because it's undemocratic. When you have a bill like this that would save the lives of these horses and protect the jobs of the drivers and it's being blocked, lives are at risk.

So we've really been urging and pushing Adrian Adams. We still have time left to get a hearing for this bill to move it forward. We believe if we had a hearing and there was a vote, this bill would pass and we could get it done this year.

But there's a sort of political corruption going on and that hasn't happened. Well, you're up against the union too. Talk about this union director, the union head, who basically is saying what you're doing is criminal.

Right, right. It's pretty wild because we have rescued their own horses from slaughter. They're so neglectful and, you know, last year there was a horse named Bernard that was in very bad shape, lame, years of neglect.

He ended up at a slaughter auction. We've rescued other horses from slaughter auctions. They're literally neglecting their horses and then sending them to slaughter.

And advocates like us are the only ones rescuing them. So we already know what a bad situation it is for these horses and rider's law would solve that problem. Unfortunately, there is a powerful union, Transport Workers Union.

The president is John Samuelson and he seems to be only representing the interests of the wealthy owners in the business. These owners want to keep abusing these horses. They want to keep a situation going where the drivers don't have a salary.

The drivers who rent the horses and carriages from them are also being exploited. They get no salary. They get no worker protections, no benefits.

And no one's ever heard of a union head acting on behalf of exploitive owners. And that's what's happening. Some kind of deal seems to have been made between the president of that union and a handful of these wealthy owners.

So what does that mean for the horses? Does that mean that this bill, and I know that your organization has truly put the money where your mouth is. Listen, if we can't get a hearing this year, we're doing everything we can to make that happen, but then we're going to pick up the fight again in January. You know, the good thing is right now the current mayor is fully in support of banning horse carriages.

He has said he is not going to veto this bill. He's urging the council to move it forward. The only thing holding it back is this union that's like heavily lobbying, putting out a lot of misinformation, just attacking us personally, attacking.

It's sort of like a bullying campaign. They've spent a million dollars on ads just in the past couple of months attacking the council members who support the bill, attacking the conservancy, attacking the mayor, attacking our organization. It's an intimidation bullying tactic and New Yorkers see through it.

We need the city council to push through and do the right thing. We know that the majority of them are on our side, but if you look at, there's a lot of legislation that can be stalled due to special interest groups that have power kind of intimidating and bullying. You know, that happens all the time.

There's nothing new, but in this case, we have lives on the line. There is a huge network of sanctuary and rescue farms waiting to take these horses in. Which is incredible because having been part of the rescue world for years, that's our biggest problem is finding a home for the underdogs, the underhorses, you know, the ones that have issues, medical or they're senior or whatever.

It's very hard to find placement and you're saying you have sanctuaries waiting. There are so many and not even and also just individuals. We've had celebrities come forward that have horse farms and equestrians.

We have had Jennifer Coolidge has been in support. I know Christy Brinkley, Whitney Cummings who has a horse farm. Bella Hadid is an equestrian and has a horse farm.

She has offered to take in horses. Kendall Jenner has come forward. She's also an equestrian with a horse.

We've had so many offers for these horses from individuals, from rescue farms, from sanctuaries. The problem is getting them freed from this abusive situation. We can only do that by passing rider's law and we have this incredible momentum.

So we are doing everything we can to push through the political corruption and the nonsense and the lies from this union that's only representing the financial interests of the owners. It's a terrible thing they're doing. We hope that they will, you know, come to their senses and there's an offer on the table for much better jobs, as I said, for the current drivers who even very recently in media reports said they don't make a lot of money.

It's not a lucrative job. Most of the money goes to caring for the horse. So there's an opportunity here to phase this out.

Either, you know, replace it with electric carriages which are popular all over the world or they've been offered full-time union city jobs. Yeah, it's not like you're saying to these drivers, goodbye. Your job is over.

Your career is over. You're offering them an opportunity for a second chance so the horse can have a second chance at life. It would truly be a win-win for everyone and it would also, for everyone in Midtown, people who live and work there, tourists, we would create a safer city because it's not only the case that the horses go run wild in the park countless times, dozens of times in the past few years.

I mean, if you can imagine for your listeners who may not be fully aware, if you know how congested and dense the traffic is in Midtown Manhattan, these poor horses are going through the worst of it, usually at rush hour, wedged in between trucks, ambulances, cars, just like weaving in and out. This should not be happening in a modern-day city. And because horses are nervous prey animals, they run when they're frightened and that has happened dozens of times in the past few years.

And especially like a horse-like lady, if you're taken from a rural environment, from an Amish farm where you lived like that your whole life and then you're thrown into Midtown Manhattan, you have no turn, no pasture. That's just unbelievably inhumane and dangerous for everyone involved. It's mind-boggling that this still exists in this day and age when there's so many of us animal advocates out there that care so deeply.

So what can people do now, Adita? What should we be focused on to put an end to this? You know, people who live in New York City, wherever you live in any of the five boroughs, if you're listening, you have a lot of power because we need you to contact, whether that's a phone call, an email, show up at the office, you all have a city council member. And if you were to reach out today, tomorrow, as soon as possible with a phone call or a letter or an email and let them know, hi, my name is XYZ. I'm a constituent of yours.

I really want you to co-sponsor and pass Rider's Law. You know, give the reasons why. That makes a big difference.

I know it can seem like, oh, I'm just one person, but they need to hear from their own constituents that this is what they want. And even if you don't live in New York City, we're asking everyone, whether you're a New Yorker or wherever you live in the world, to contact Speaker Adrienne Adams. She is single-handedly blocking this bill from even getting a hearing.

We're asking people to flood her with calls and emails because it's undemocratic. How do they reach her? Is there an email that you can give out or a phone number? Yes, I can give you that right now because we give this number out. But also, if people want, we have a take action page on our website, which is nyclass.org slash stophorseabuse.

So it's nyclass.org slash stophorseabuse, and that page really has all the information for who to contact, contact information, information for Adrienne Adams. If people are listening now and want to call, the number for her office is 718-206-2068. You can call, hopefully get a person to answer or leave a message, 718-206-2068, and her email is speakeradams at council.nyc.gov. So those are quick actions everyone can take, but you know, it's very helpful when New Yorkers who live in New York City make the direct contact with their own council member because we need to counter what they're getting from the union that is aggressively telling these council members, no, don't support this bill, don't sign on.

They're trying to get the ones that have signed on to take their name off. So we need people power, not a special interest that is representing financial interests of the owners. We need the people of New York City and everyone around the world who cares to contact these officials because that's the only chance we need to have a hearing.

If we had a hearing for this bill, we would pass it. That's why they're so desperately blocking it because they know we have everything on our side. We have the truth, we have the public, we have the Central Park Conservancy, we have every animal welfare organization and horse rescue group.

So they want to bury this and prevent it from going forward. We can't let that happen. Well, thanks to you, that looks like it's not going to happen.

You and your wonderful organization, NYCLASS, are really doing something to make a difference. Hopefully the next time we speak, you will be giving me great news because I cannot wait to see only electric carriages on our streets and never see a horse on the streets again in that situation. Yeah, couldn't agree more.

There will be a huge celebration when we finally, this will be a victory. Also, just to show around the world that New York is a compassionate city. We don't tolerate abusing horses on our streets.

So many other cities around the world have already done this. Actually, Malaga, Spain fully banned all their horse carriages. Brussels, Belgium replaced all their horses with electric carriages.

Other cities like Mumbai, India replaced all their horse carriages with electric carriages a few years ago. The list is so long. Chicago banned horse carriages.

Montreal, London, Paris, Toronto. We're like an outlier here and we're supposed to be a leader. Exactly.

And here we are. It's not 1825 anymore. Exactly.

Well, hopefully we will be next. Thank you so much. Thank you, Adita.

And when we come back, we will be checking in with our cat correspondent, Deborah Cribbs, who has some wonderful advice that could make your feline very happy this holiday season. Welcome back to Rappaport to the Rescue. I'm with my cat correspondent, Deborah Cribbs.

Deborah, great to see you. And what have you got to tell me on the feline front today? I am so happy to see and hear you today, Jill. You know what? The holidays are fast approaching.

And what do we think about during the holidays? Giving things to people like gifts, right? Right. Well, I got an idea. Have you worried about what to get your pets for Christmas? Give a cat to your cat.

That's my message for today. Two for one. Two is easier and better than one in a household.

That's really interesting. So, I know they love the squeaky toys and the toys they can crawl in and the catnip toys. But you're saying, as an expert in this area, the best gift you can give your cat is another cat.

Absolutely. So, you obviously help the shelters by having more cats adopted. But I will tell you that a cat who has a friend in the house is a happy cat.

And when you have two, they play with each other. They keep each other occupied. And they're really not that much more work.

Some people say, well, gosh, if you have two, is it more work? Not really. No, it's not. But it's really fun to watch them play with each other.

And, you know, the education. Everybody says the first thing you shouldn't do is ever give a pet as a gift because you might think you're doing the right thing. And then they could end up in a household where they're not prepared or ready to really take on that animal.

So, you really have to make sure before we go out and decide we want to give a shelter pet, you've got to really talk to the family or the person. But you're saying, as a cat owner, a pet parent, that you should really consider this addition because it'll make their lives so much better. And I love that thought, Debra, because it is.

You're saving two lives, not only the one you bring in, but you're making room for another one in the shelters. And with your initiative, Give Them Ten, you have seen such magic in the area where you started this. So, you know it works.

It absolutely does. So, we say now that the holidays are approaching, get a cat for your cat. You can really do it any time of year.

I agree 100 percent, Jill. You don't go giving cats or dogs as gifts to people if you don't know that they are ready to receive that gift. But as a cat person, I know whether I have a solo cat or a cat that might be a little bored and be super happy to have a new friend at home.

So, absolutely, get a cat for your cat. It helps everyone. And another wonderful thing to do in holiday season is donate.

Please write a check. If everybody just gave a dollar, we've discussed this, our shelter system would probably be emptied out. So, I also encourage people, if you're not ready to open your heart and home to an animal, a cat, a kitten, a dog, a puppy, whatever it is that you love, but you're not ready, please donate.

Or donate your time to these organizations. Everybody could appreciate someone going into having someone sit with an animal or fostering one of these pets, right? Absolutely. I always say contact your local shelter.

They know what they need. Volunteer. Be a dog walker.

Go into the shelter and pet cats and help socialize them. Write a check if that's what you can do. But if all of us do something, then these animals that we love, cats, dogs, horses, will be better.

Everybody will be better. Humans and the pets. Oh, beautiful note to end on.

And Debra, I want to wish you the most lovely holiday season. With Thanksgiving just around the corner now, and we're going to be doing so many more segments with you, including cat adoption stories, breaking news stories. This is going to be wonderful.

Thank you so much for being part of Rappaport to the Rescue. Thank you and happy holidays to you. Wishing you all a lovely holiday season filled with love, joy, and hopefully adoption.

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