A 16-year-old male carriage horse named Midnite died in his tiny stable stall at 5am on Monday, October 23 and then was carted away by the sanitation department, like garbage.
Midnite died an agonizing death, of colic---a severe abdominal and intestinal issue that can be caused by lack of turnout, a poor diet and improper veterinary care. There are no veterinarians on-site at the horse stables. These are some of the very issues NYCLASS is trying to change: requiring access to turnout areas for carriage horses, better veterinary care and higher-quality food. The current state of affairs for carriage horses must change. Horses are suffering and dying.
Midnite worked a long shift on the streets of New York City, among gridlock and traffic, only to drop dead in the early morning and end up in a garbage truck. NYCLASS is working hard to make major changes for the horses, and we need your continued support to make it happen.
The New York City Department of Health (DOH) is responsible for inspecting the horses in their stables and overseeing the health of the horses. There was no necropsy performed on Midnite.
We must demand that the DOH prevent the kind of suffering Midnite endured before dying. Horses deserve turnout areas where they can move around freely and be with other horses, better veterinary care, better quality food and their boarding areas should not be directly in traffic on 59th Street but instead should be inside car-free Central Park.
TAKE ACTION
Contact the NYC Department of Health and ask them to take action prevent the cruelty and suffering horses like Midnite face every day.
Email Dept. of Health Acting Commissioner Oxiris Barbot at: [email protected] and ask her to institute much needed changes to the regulations that are supposed to protect the carriage horses but are failing.
--The horse pictured above is not Midnite, but is another NYC carriage horse who died on the street in 2011.
For the animals,
Edita Birnkrant
Executive Director, NYCLASS
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