We’re going full steam ahead with our efforts to permanently ban horse-drawn carriage rides in New York, and the latest high profile New Yorker to sign on to the campaign is Lea Michele, the beautiful star of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Spring Awakening. Here’s what she said about her decision to do this ad on behalf of New York’s carriage horses:

"These horses are forced to work long hours in extreme weather conditions, all while walking on hard pavement and inhaling exhaust fumes. As a New Yorker, I know how tough it can be to navigate the city streets, and that's on two feet! When I see the horses attached to carriages and made to pull heavy loads in traffic, it makes me sad and angry. I want tourists to know that long after their rides are up, these horses’ miserable lives continue, day in and day out."

Thank you, Lea! I’ve posted the new ad below, and you can learn more about the campaign here.

Some traditions, regardless of how much fun they may have seemed a hundred years ago, need to just go ahead and die. And any “tradition” that involves beating and abusing living beings needs to do so sooner rather than later. Of course that doesn’t always mean you have to stop doing something you were way into—it just means you have to stop doing the part of it that was stupid and ill-thought-out in the first place. People who can’t live without old-timey rides in New York City, for instance, can still have them after we win our campaign to ban horse-drawn carriages in the city. As this recent article in The New York Post explains in more detail, we want the city’s politicians to replace the carriages with "green" replicas of antique cars like the Ford Model T. I’m way into the idea. What do you think?

EverettCurrierFarm / CC

Two PETA carriage horse monitors—who had been watching Central Park carriage drivers to document any cruelty to horses—were recently attacked by a man who shoved them and struck one of them on the head as they videotaped the hack line on Central Park South. We’re still waiting to find out whether the individual involved in the attack was a carriage horse driver himself or whether he’s just, like, a really big fan of their work, but I’ll post an update if we get any more information from the NYPD.

In the meantime, here’s your standard shaky-camera, profanity-laden youtube video of the encounter. For more information about the carriage horse industry and to find out what you can do to help carriage horses in New York, click here.

There was yet another carriage-horse fatality in New York today. How many more horses have to die before New York realizes that this industry has no place in a civilized city? The following is PETA’s official statement on the incident.

PETA has just learned that a horse used to pull carriages in New York City died this afternoon at the Clinton Park Stables. Unconfirmed reports indicate that the horse died of colic, which causes severe abdominal pain. PETA is investigating the circumstances of the horse’s death and reminds New Yorkers as well as tourists that these horses should be in pastures, not locked in dark, damp stalls in warehouse buildings. We renew our call to New Yorkers to help put an end to this inhumane and unsafe industry and to support City Council Member Tony Avella’s proposal to ban horse-drawn carriages in the city.

Chrissie Hynde got married while sitting in a horse-drawn carriage in Manhattan in the '80s, but she’s changed her views on how ‘romantic’ carriage horse rides are since then. This afternoon, she led a PETA protest in Central Park to encourage tourists not to support the carriage-horse industry, which is notorious for abusing the animals it profits from, and forces them to pull heavy loads through exhaust-filled streets in all weather extremes. Here’s what she says about the whole sordid business:

"Learning about how horses have died in accidents and seeing their pathetic night stalls got me to change my tune about carriage horses. I love horses and hate seeing them reduced to beasts of burden in one of my favorite cities in the world."

And here’s what she said about her marriage:

"I got hitched to Jim Kerr (Simple Minds) in a horse drawn carriage in New York. The marriage didn't last and I hope the carriages meet the same fate."

A huge thank you to Chrissie for selflessly coming through for animals in need yet again. There are some pics from the event below, and while we’re at it, you can click here for a nice photo of Ms. Hynde at the recent opening of her vegan restaurant in Akron, Ohio. You frickin’ rule, Chrissie Hynde.

So, after years of hard work by animal protection advocates exposing the extreme cruelty involved in these operations, some of the last horse slaughterhouses in the U.S. were shut down. But the folks in the horse-racing and horse-carriage industries still need to do something with the thousands of horses who are rendered useless to them every year due to old age or outright abuse. So they’ve been sending these animals across the border to Mexico, which has even more lax regulations for its slaughterhouses than the abysmal standards in the U.S.—and the results are positively gruesome.

The good news is that there’s a bill on the table that would ban the export of horses to foreign slaughterhouses called the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, and we’re pushing hard right now to help get it passed. You can click here to learn more about the act and write to your Representatives through our online form to ask that they support the new bill to protect horses.

I’ve never understood the whole carriage horse attraction. Setting aside the animal rights thing for a second, I just don’t get how people could possibly construe riding around a loud busy city in a non-air-conditioned buggy while smelling horse crap the whole time as even the slightest bit romantic. I’ve always found it totally absurd. But believe it or not, that’s not what this post is about . . .

Fund4Horses/Creative Commons

Last week a spooked horse used for carriage rides collided with a taxi cab in NYC, injuring the horse and taxi driver. Sadly, this isn’t an isolated incident. Carriage and car collisions and other such accidents have occurred in nearly every location where horse-drawn carriages are allowed. The last one I heard about was last year when a horse was euthanized after bolting from his carriage and slamming into a station wagon—the driver received a fractured skull and a medically induced coma. You may remember that case because Martha Stewart’s daughter, Alexis, jumped on it and brought some much needed attention to the issue. The same year, two other people were seriously injured in collisions, and one horse was repeatedly whipped after collapsing in Central Park—she died in her stall the next morning. Anyway, this latest incident—there have been more than 20 in the past 10 years—happened on July 4th, when a horse became spooked and ran into a taxi cab, resulting in lacerations of the horse’s leg and hospitalization of the cab driver.

The harsh reality here is that as long as horses are forced to work in loud and busy city environments, these accidents will continue to happen regularly. And in addition to the clear danger it poses to people, the horses’ hooves and legs suffer from constant pounding on hard pavement and the smoke and exhaust fumes from urban traffic can make them ill.

So, please take a moment to click here to join us in urging the New York City council to ban the outdated and cruel horse-drawn carriages that endanger animals, drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. Palm Beach, Fla., London, Paris, and Toronto have all banned carriage horses because of cruelty to animals, and it’s time for New York City to join them.

IneTours/Creative Commons

And don’t worry about the tourists. They’ll be fine. If they insist on sticking out like a sore thumb they can still take one of the super cheesy roof-top bus tours . . .