The mayhem started at around 4:20 p.m., when the horse’s driver tried to make a sharp turn into the park at the north side of Columbus Circle, witnesses said. The horse lost its balance and went into a frenzy, according to Sidiki Tapsoba, who arranges pedicab rides in the park.
“The horse lost control,” said Tapsoba. “The horse ran, trying to go back to the place it lives.”…
An officer at the scene said the horse ran to Ninth Avenue, where it made a left turn and then waited at the red light. A female pedestrian was able to grab hold of the horse’s reigns briefly, and a police officer reportedly tied it up to a nearby pole.
Y’all know I eat meat with abandon and am in general no hardcore animal-rights activist or anything. But everything about this story seems so sad to me, including but not limited to the photos of the tranquilized horse prostrate on Ninth Avenue in front of Burrito Box.
“The place it lives” is a stable on 52nd and 12th, but… you know. Also, how depressing is it that the horse is institutionalized enough to wait at a red light? Seems like this is no life for a horse. It still had its blinders on when it woke up and was ushered into a police van.
Sorry if I have less sympathy for the injured-but-generally OK driver and passengers of the carriage. Certainly it sucked for them too, but probably not as much as a life of dragging a massive carriage around the same route every day, punctuated by one fleeting moment of terrifying freedom that ended in a drugged heap in Hell’s Kitchen.
Tedquarters 