Horses

Save the Carriage Horses of New York City

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With the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show right around the corner, it’s time to share a column I recently wrote about the Carriage Horses of New York City. If you are coming to the city for the big dog show, stop by the stables to meet the horses, take a tour and go for a carriage ride. Go to Facebook for Canines and Coaches 2015 open house event info: https://www.facebook.com/caninesandcoachesNYC2015

Grooming Tyson before he heads out for a carriage ride

Grooming Tyson before he heads out for a carriage ride

Lisa Unleashed ~ Originally published in The Newtown Bee, November 14, 2014:

Last summer I was invited by a fellow dog breeder to go on a tour of the carriage horse stables on 52nd Street in New York City. I was vaguely aware that New York City’s Mayor Bill DeBlasio had made a campaign pledge to remove the horse carriage industry from Manhattan and replace them with electric car rides in Central Park. As a horse lover, I found this political promise odd and even dangerous. Animal rights extremists were alleging that the carriage horses were not be treated humanely and that they needed to be “rescued” from this dangerous life on the city streets. I was curious, so I accepted the invitation and went to tour the stables.

Tyson & I - Carriage horse Extraordinaire!

Tyson and Lisa Peterson. Carriage Horse Extraordinaire! Tyson is a handsome 12-year-old Percheron/Morgan cross. 

What I found amazed me! As I toured the three-story stables, I was impressed with with rubber matted ramps connecting the floors in a barn any horseman would be proud of. It was summer and there was neither a foul odor from the box stalls nor a fly that I could find. What I did find where well cared for, well-groomed, well-fed, content horses munching on good quality hay, drinking clean water, and taking carrots from my hand. One of the drivers, Steve Malone, a second-generation horseman, offered us a carriage ride through Central Park. We climbed aboard the open-air carriage and enjoyed the views, the clip clop of the hooves on the roads, and the slowing down of a hectic day to enjoy the nature of the park. It was a touch point with horses and history.

Carriage Horse Driver Stephen Malone takes us for a tour of Central Park

Carriage Horse Driver Stephen Malone takes us for a tour of Central Park

Because I had taken the time to visit with the horses, experience a carriage ride, ask questions of the owners on all matters of care, conditioning and retirement, I was soundly convinced that these horses, who have a job and do it well, don’t need to be rescued from the city streets. In fact, this industry is highly regulated since the 1850s with oversight by five city agencies and a 144 pages of regulations. Horses cannot work if it’s too hot, the can not work if its too cold, they get mandatory vet visits several times a year and five weeks of vacation away form the city. They even have a retirement home called Blue Star Equiculture.

Rally for Support

This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to attend a conference in support of animal welfare where one of the licensed drivers from New York, Christina Hansen, spoke on the topic of the threat to ban the horses. It appears to me that there is a hidden agenda behind this issue. I won’t taint your objectivity about it but it involves real estate developers and animal rights groups electing a political candidate. It also involves a community’s response in the face of attacks. In addition this issue has created a rare occurrence in New York City media, where The New York Times, the New York Daily News and the New York Post, all come out in favor of the carriage horses in their editorials. I urge people who want to learn more about this topic, this hidden agenda, and how to support saving this important tradition of horses in our everyday lives to visit www.savenychorsecarriages.com. Please watch the video, narrated by Liam Neeson, a strong advocate to preserve this historic tradition in the city. Also, stop by the blog posts of author Jon Katz at www.bedlamfarm.com for yet more insight about our humanity and our horses.

Stall with a view!

Stall with a view!

Canines and Coaches & Clip Clop NYC!

The industry has several opportunities each year for open houses and tours of the stables. They believe in being transparent and are proud to show off the care their give their horses. Last June they held their annual ClipClopNYC open house –  www.clipclopnyc.com – and in February they held the first annual Canine and Coaches open house in conjunction with the venerable Westminster Kennel Club dog show. The carriage drivers offered discounted rides for any exhibitor and their dog who had been to Westminster. It’s nice to see that when the going gets tough, the dog and horse people always pull together. Next year, Canines and Coaches will be happening again. For more information visit http://www.facebook.com/caninesandcoachesNYC2015.

Stopping for a drink of cool water from a water trough used by horses for more than a century

Stopping for a drink of cool water from a water trough used by horses for more than a century

The movement to ban the carriage horses is not over and it’s an issue still before the New York City Council, despite a recent poll showing that New Yorkers are 2-to-1 in favor of keeping the carriage horses in Central Park. If you are a horse lover and want to support keeping this tradition alive, please, follow “The Famous Horse-Drawn Carriages of Central Park” on Facebook and @NYChorses on Twitter. Use their hashtag, #SaveNYCHorseCarriages to stay informed and help however you can.

The Fall Indoor Circuit

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The Pennsylvania National Horse Show just finished 10 days showcasing premier hunters and jumpers ridden by juniors and adults, all culminating in the $85,000 Grand Prix de Penn National. I watched nearly ever round of every class thanks to live streaming on the USEF Network (www.usefnetwork.com) the online channel of the United States Equestrian Federation (USEF). Thanks to technology horse-crazy girls like myself can experience equine sports to the extreme from the bending lines, in and outs, and long approaches of those exquisitely executed hunter courses to those thrilling triple combinations, rollbacks, and jumper jump-offs. To my delight I also watched Hunt Night, complete with a pack of hounds and the Ladies Side Saddle division, including jumping! Think about that for a moment.

Horse Show of the Gilded Age
Premier horse shows, like dog shows, grew up in Manhattan’s gilded age in the 1870s and 1880s. The famous Westminster Kennel Club dog show, founded in 1877, which promotes itself as the second longest sporting event in America after the Kentucky Derby, was founded by a group of sportsmen. So too was the National Horse Show founded in 1883 by a group of sportsmen. And while horse sports, in the form of racing was established much earlier, with such venues as the Saratoga Race Course in 1863 during the Civil War, it was the post-war economic boom which fueled incredible wealth and the need to spend it on leisurely pursuits.

At this point those gilded gentlemen and their ladies, needed some entertainment and bragging rights to amuse themselves during the rest of the year when they weren’t up at the “Saratoga Spa” but stuck in New York City for the fall and winter social seasons. Both Westminster and the National Horse Show chose the original Madison Square Garden at 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue as the venue for the premier events in their respective sports.

“The National” became “the place” to be seen. In fact, according to the event’s website, “By 1887, the National Horse Show Directory, listing directors and 920 members, formed the basis for Louis Keller’s first New York Social Register.” Even The New York Times journalist Joe Drape gave a nod to the social status of the National when recounting the racehorse Cigar, “to his final destination of Madison Square Garden, where on Nov. 2, 1996, he was thrown a retirement party before the white-gloved set at the National Horse Show.”

As the popularity of equine sports soared after World War II the National had company. The Pennsylvania National Horse Show was founded in Harrisburg in 1945 followed by the Washington International Horse Show (WIHS) in 1958 in DC. These three top-rated urban horse shows held in large indoor arenas a few weeks apart in October were dubbed “the indoor circuit” or “fall indoors” for the last half century.

Horse-Crazy Girls
I recall my first trip to the National as a young child mesmerized by something called the Puissance. This class basically asks a horse to gallop at a 7-foot brick wall made of wooden boxes and jump it. I also remember watching the Maclay Equitation Finals because a fellow rider at my barn was showing her sister’s beautiful black Thoroughbred mare Fleet Nancy, a relative of 1943 Triple Crown winner Count Fleet. I also remember another young girl who won that class, Leslie Burr, who hailed from Connecticut. It was at that show I fell in love with horse shows, jumping and Thoroughbreds!

Last week I watched that same Leslie Burr, now Howard, pilot many jumpers around the Farm Complex at the Penn National via live stream. It was a different kind of thrilling than some 40 years earlier at the Garden, but still, today I could watch it where ever I was! And, Olympic veteran Howard keeps those beautiful horses right here in Newtown.

This week I’ll be tuning in to watch the WIHS, which now bills its self as ‘the country’s leading metropolitan indoor horse show,” since the venerable National left Madison Square Garden in 1990s. Indeed, the WIHS has other bragging rights as well, including “The standing North American indoor Puissance (high jump) record of 7 feet 7 1/2 inches was set at Washington in 1983 by Anthony D’Ambrosio and Sweet N’ Low.

And to finish up the indoor circuit October 28-November 2, the Alltech National Horse Show can be viewed online from USEF’s headquarters at the Kentucky Horse Park, the show’s home since 2011. It pleases me to know that the National, at one point near extinction once it left New York City, was a tradition founded and saved by a “group of sportsmen” and sportswomen too!