Horses Without Carriages International: December 2008

Horses Without Carriages International is a coalition of diverse organizations and individuals throughout the world with the common goal of exposing the injustice, cruelty and inhumanity to the much beleaguered horse who is forced to pull carriages full of tourists for "entertainment" or as in Israel - to pull huge loads much like the cart horses of the 19th century in the US.

The use of horse-drawn carriages for entertainment has been banned in London, Oxford, Paris, Toronto, Beijing and numerous smaller cities throughout the United States. It is our goal to add to that number.

December 6th - the first Saturday in December - has been chosen to acknowledge these beasts of burden, publicize their plight and educate the public about the inherent cruelty involved in this industry. On Saturday, there were simultaneous events taking place not only in NYC, but in Boston, Victoria, British Columbia, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Dublin, Rome, Florence and Tel Aviv where horse advocates around the world stood in solidarity in asking for the cruelty to stop and for all of these cities to come into the 21st century.

In New York City, the event was sponsored by the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages and Friends of Animals. Council Member Tony Avella, the sponsor of Intro 658, the bill to ban horse-drawn carriages in NYC, joined the demonstration.

Two water troughs are pictured below - the empty one is near Sixth Avenue in the park; the one with dirty water is near Grand Army Plaza.

NEW YORK CITY