Animal OK after tumble near Central Park

A carriage horse slipped and fell near Central Park yesterday afternoon, raising more accusations from both animal rights groups and the Horse and Carriage Association of New York City.

This is getting ridiculous.

A carriage-horse fell near Central Park just after 4 p.m. on Sunday.

Just three weeks before a New York City carriage horse collapsed and died on a busy Manhattan street, another unfortunate horse was being dropped off at New Holland auction in Lancaster County by a van labled with a NYC carriage company logo.

Ruby looked restless. The brown horse shifted in place, turned around, and occasionally poked her white muzzle between the red bars of her 8 by 10-foot stall on the second floor of the Clinton Park Stables. Her golf ball-sized eyes glistened and she sighed, staring out at us all the while. The Observer reached in and stroked Ruby's snout between the bars, wondering if the horse had any clue of the battle raging around her.

Roy the Begian-bred carriage horse clops up 11th Ave. past double-parked trucks, neighing as honking taxis and livery cabs zip past on his mile-long trek to Central Park. He doesn’t know it, but fighting midtown traffic isn’t the only battle his owner and operator, Ian McKeever, has been waging.

NY1 VIDEO: Inside City Hall’s Josh Robin hosted a debate about carriage horses with Connor McHugh, a carriage owner, and Christina Hansen, former carriage driver and working horse advocate, and two opponents of the carriage horse industry: Carly Marie Knudson, who is the executive director of NYCLASS (New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets), and Dan Matthews, the senior vice president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which is better known as PETA.

The city’s carriage-horse industry could wind up as an issue in the 2013 mayoral race.