When a New York City carriage horse collapsed and died in the street, there was an immediate response from animal organizations and celebrities. Lea Michele, PETA’s spokesperson for their campaign against horse-drawn carriages, was among those to urge support for a ban on the industry, penning a letter to Mayor Bloomberg.

Following that heartbreaking incident, came news of a second horse to collapse in the streets of Manhattan. Now, a third has collapsed, and this has all been within a couple of weeks’ time. Michele took to Twitter when she heard the news, tweeting “A 3rd horse collapses in NYC!!! Are you kidding me!! I’m so sad…
@peta @ChoMatic @PamelaDAnderson we have to end this now.” She included PETA and PETA staff member Michelle Cho, along with Pamela Anderson who has also recently spoken out against the carriage horse industry and calling for support of Intro 86, which would replace horse carriages with eco-friendly vehicles.

In response to the latest injury, PETA says “If it seems like just last week that Mayor Bloomberg was callously dismissing the death of a horse used for New York’s infamous carriage rides, that’s because it was. And in the days since Bloomberg made unintentionally ironic comments like ‘[they] probably wouldn’t be alive if they didn’t have a job’ (talk about a catch 22), there have been two more horse-drawn carriage ‘accidents.’ (Although what else can be expected when sensitive, easily frightened horses are forced to work 10-hour days in all weather extremes on New York City’s crowded streets?)…The most recent incident happened during Friday’s rush hour when a horse fell down in the middle of the busy street. Witnesses said the horse either collapsed on his own or because his leg became caught in the carriage when he bucked.”