IAN McKEEVER is hopping mad at a legion of wacko animal activists who can’t help but put the cart before the horse.
McKeever is one of the 68 registered horsedrawn carriage owners at Central Park who say they think activists love the sound of their own voices more than they care for the animals.
“They stand around our carriage line with pictures of dead horses and tell customers that if they take a ride, they’re helping cruelty and helping kill a horse,” McKeever said.
“Sure it hurts business – but worse is the abuse and the lies and the impression they give the public.”
Now a counterattack has been launched, and the first shot has been fired by a spokesperson for the Horse and Carriage Association, Carolyn Daly, who claims her pony soldiers were badly misrepresented in a recent article in The New York Times.
“The Times reporter drew from a city comptroller’s order which completely misrepresented the document,” Daly was saying.
“The story reported that owners maintained their horses in substandard conditions . . . [and provided] lax veterinary care and that the horses aren’t provided enough water. The order said nothing like that.”
McKeever said the horses work eight hours a day, five days a week and have four months of the year vacation. “We love our horses dearly,” he said.
Those horses are the owners’ living. To believe they are not given enough water is like saying Mario Andretti never put oil in his car.
“These stories have encouraged the extremists who know nothing about horses. They tell tourists, ‘Look at that sad horse with his head drooping down.’ The idiots don’t know the horses are asleep,” McKeever said.
“One reporter wrote he saw 13 horses whose back legs appeared to belame.
“Most horses, when they stand still, they stand stiffly on three legs, but they mostly curl one of their back legs. Another fool.”