10/16/2026
Full letter to the New York Post editor:
Please, send in your own!!
āHave you ever driven a horse drawn carriage?
Have you ever even been to a carriage stables?
Brushed or taken care of these majestic creatures?
Statistics say if youāre sitting in your office high rise on your computer or smartphone reading this, you likely havenāt done any of those things, much less recently if you even happened to have interacted with them.
My name is StĆ©phanie Marie out of Worcester, MA, and in my picture is Cole, an ex Amish horse Percheron whose current job saved him from a slaughterhouse. I wonder if your politicians truly care if being starved to death, fighting for any food and water you can find, among disease, in overcrowded conditions getting trampled on and injured or sick with 0 veterinary care on your truck journey to Canada or Mexico to be slaughtered is really ābetter for animal welfareā than having a cozy job pulling a carriage and enchanting city dwellers? With a meal card, guaranteed housing, and retirement plan? Or maybe rotting unloved and unemployed, bored to death in a rescue that is overfull and under-resourced for years on end is a better alternative? If you can find one that will take your horseā¦
Cole could answer you if you spoke horse to understand him.
But even an AI program can answer my question objectively.
So why canāt you? Why canāt Mamdani and Menin?
Not more than ONE fatal incident has ever been recorded in NYC history in the centuries-old carriage industry. Meanwhile e-bike collisions have totaled over 133 since 2019 ALONE!! (Us) Trainers, drivers, and handlers work TIRELESSLY to guarantee the safety of these beautiful beasts and this is the track record we have to show in your city. So the argument that carriages are posing a public transportation hazard is not only ludicrous, but flat out FALSE. I wonder how many dollars are going into the pockets of Mamdani and Menin to pull off lies like theseā¦ we are slated for WW3 but THIS is their fight to pick?
It is only when animals BRED for WORK such as these are DENIED the opportunity to do so that welfare is the main issue. Oh, ironic isnāt it? Because it is a disservice to the horse, to deny his birthright, his instinctsā¦ and put his wellbeing at risk- at ending up in a place where stabling, healthcare, and food is not guaranteed because neither is his job. Outlawing carriage horses does precisely this, in case you didnāt catch it the first time.
Briefly I would like to share a story with you. Before I learned to drive horses, I exclusively rode them. My best friend had another Percheron named Bubby. 1200lbs of pure mayhem. But it wasnāt his fault- he was miserable. And turns out animals, like us humans, do some pretty crazy stuff when they are mentally insane and utterly miserable. But why, you ask? He had a cozy life. Food, friends, vet care, a cushy trail riding pleasure gig with my friend who loved him to death- but he tried to kill me and her (among others) several times.
The barn workers, vets, and farriers were almost all terrified of him and so he could only scarcely be handled by a handful of humans. It was dangerous for most professionals to administer care. Until he revolted one New England winter day and kicked my friendās eyes in. Dinner plates of hooves to the face- I drove her to the ER and we left him running terrorizing the others around the property- the mule took care of him. My friend nearly lost her eyes- had a 50/50 chance of seeing out of them againā¦ her family and I forced her to move him because she refused to euthanize- but it was clear he needed to go. So she sent him to a draft horse sanctuary in Maine that takes these power working breeds and puts them to work like their genetics intended- logging. And he remains there to this day as one of their most docile, kindest horses, THRIVING, and expertly tended to. The version of him my friend held in her head: delusion, not reality, at the time she had him. She saw the version the future world would see- when he was doing what he was designed forā¦ and it was the structure of hard work doing exactly what he was made for that restored his outlook on life. Gave him a purpose. And made him SAFE- to himself and humanity. A horse that would otherwise have been euthanized. Talk about WELFARE.
When I became a commercial carriage driver I had soooooo much to learn. I started learning a decade ago as a freshman at UMass Amherst when Blue Star Equiculture herolded by Pam Rickenbach and her late husband taught a Horse Husbandry course. It was here that my biases and ignorance came to die and be sacrificed on the altar. Our politicians and any believers that carriage driving should be outlawed need to first step into the horseshoes of these creatures before they try and make bogus decisions for them, that work AGAINST them, and claim hero status. They should be the next ones to take this course and lay their own prejudices, $$$ interests, and unfounded ignorance about this industry on the alter to die as well.
Because how many times do we have to witness animals going certifiably insane, becoming dangerous to themselves, their kind, and all of humanity because a HUMAN decides not to let them do as their genetics created them? We have seen this in dogs - working breeds like the heeler, the collies, the pointers; the power breeds, the guardian breeds, who year after year appear in numerous bite and aggression case files because they are holed up in inappropriate dwellings with NO job. And that was precisely their purpose in life- to have a job. Instead, humans try to make couch potatoes out of a steer herder and wonder why their dog bites their anklesā¦. How long until we realize that we are doing the very same thing to ourselves as a species??? We were not bred to eat poisoned food. We were not created to be addicted to artificial light and screens, couped up in tiny buildings closed off from the outdoors, radiated out of our literal minds for a lifetime. And wonder why we feel nuts? Wonder why everyone seems to have a mental health diagnosis. Wonder why everyone is dying of cancerā¦ itās truly anything but wonder. We are being slowly and methodically forced to live against what our genetic code dictates and that is exactly what these politicians want not just for us, but for our animals, and we are COMPLIANT as a society.
You want to know whatās next?
Itās not āoffering 68 medallions of carriage drivers skills trainingā to āseek alternative industriesā - itās extinction. Itās not the āend of carriagesā oh no, my friend, itās more serious than that.
Itās extinction first of breeds. Then of species. They pit dog against dog for survival. The less numbers there are, the easier the mass is to control, manipulate, and surveil. And itās not equines theyāre after, after all. Itās a metaphor. A foreshadowing. But take it quite literally please, lest I be named a conspiracy theorist. You will see that this ban only creates chaos. Perhaps, that is exactly par for their course.
After all, they donāt really care about Cole do they?
They donāt care if he eats enough, if he has a place to sleep, if he has access to veterinary care, or a retirement plan. The people behind this ban donāt care about him or any of his kind. They just care about counting the stacks under their tables, isnāt that how politics works? Welfare. A convenient, empty, pathetic excuse for grand theft robbery and a license to kill an entire species, an entire industryā¦ with no benefit to either of the latter.
Tell the truth.
