Liam Neeson doesn't know who you are or what you want, but he does have a very particular sets of skills; skills he has acquired over a very long career. Skills that make him a pain the neck for people like Mayor Bill de Blasio. But all de Blasio has to do is abandon his plan to ban carriage horses, and that'll be the end of it. Until that happens, Neeson's staying in his face—today he's got a cameo in the NY Times, where he writes in an op-ed, "Horses have been pulling from the beginning of time. It is what they have been bred to do."
De Blasio said in a mayoral forum a year ago, "I would ban the horse carriages in Central Park within the first week on the job. I think it's horrible what happens to the horses. I think it's unnecessary and doesn't do anything for our economy, much to the chagrin of the mayor who thinks it's at the center of our tourism economy." Of course, now that's he's actually mayor, de Blasio admitted last week that he's setting his eyes on shutting down the carriage horse industry by the end of the year.
Neeson has publicly invited de Blasio to visit the stables where the carriage horses live, to show how well-cared they are, but de Blasio had passed on being TAKEN on a tour. In today's op-ed, the actor invites the mayor once again, insisting:
Horses and their caretakers work together to earn a decent livelihood in New York, as they have for hundreds of years. New York’s horse-carriage trade is a humane industry that is well regulated by New York City’s Departments of Health and Mental Hygiene and Consumer Affairs. Harry W. Werner, a past president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, has visited the stables and “found no evidence whatsoever of inhumane conditions, neglect or cruelty in any aspect.”
Every horse must be licensed and pass a physical examination by a veterinarian twice a year; typically, the horses spend about six hours per day in the park. They cannot work in excessive cold or heat, and must also be furloughed for five weeks a year on a pasture in the country.
New York’s horse carriages have made an estimated six million trips in traffic over the last 30 years. In that time, just four horses have been killed as a result of collisions with motor vehicles, with no human fatalities. In contrast to the terrible toll of traffic accidents generally on New Yorkers, the carriage industry has a remarkable safety record.
Who cares that our horrible traffic spooks carriage horses?
Neeson has previously told the Post's Andrea Peyser that de Blasio's promised ban is "criminal! This is an iconic, historic part of New York" and said to Jon Stewart that carriage horse drivers "made the roads of New York," prompting Stewart to say, "What, are the roads made out of horse shit?"
