“Enough horse shit,” said St. Augustine’s carriage sales, while NYC is confused
Another New York City runaway carriage horse generated sound and fury, but no political action
The ST. AUGUSTINE, Florida––New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani appears to still be juggling conflicting fall 2025 election promises made by horse-drawn carriage industry opponents and Transportation Workers Union president John Samuelsen, a leading defender of the carriage trade, but city commissioners in St. Cushion of Country Carriages.
“City leaders voted unanimously not to renew the company’s lease when it expires on September 30, 2026, citing numerous inspections and documented violations over the years,” reports Christina Burgess for First Beach News.
“The decision follows months of debate about the treatment of horses and the company’s compliance record,” Burgess concluded.
The carriage horses are “part of the history of St. Augustine” says the owner
“Cushion told the commissioners that his horses were well cared for and part of the history of St.
“City staff,” said Burgess, “presented findings from walkthroughs conducted over the past few years that show the horses are generally in good health and properly fed. However, officials also outlined documented violations, including concerns that the horses were not evacuated during Hurricane Milton in 2024,” which hit, according to Cushion, when he was away.
“Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline said the company has a ‘long list of non-compliance and violations,'” Burgess recounted.
“Corey Sakryd, the city’s director of general services, said the business has more documented issues than any other tenant.”
“The list of violations is long,” agreed commissioner Jon DePreter.
strangles
“Last month,” Burgess continued, “the business went into quarantine after a horse contracted strangles, a contagious respiratory infection.
Attests Cushion, “I spend $60,000 to $80,000 a year on vets.
Looking forward to the end of the horse-drawn carriage business in St. Augustine, after 20 often controversial years, industry opponent Heather Wilson told Burgess, “We want to make sure that every one of these animals has a soft place to land,” a potentially tall order given the ongoing national shortage of horse retirement options.
“We meet with sanctuaries and rescues,” Wilson said. “We do this because we know these animals deserve to be released.”
Panama City Beach banned horse-drawn carriages in 2009
The St. Augustine appears to be the second Florida city to ban horse-drawn carriages, following Panama City Beach in 2009, where the industry never took off.
The Panama Beach City council previously banned horse-drawn vehicles from operating on the beach from March 1 to September 30 each year, under an old ordinance intended to keep horses from polluting the beach during tourist season.
The ordinance was extended to ban horse-drawn vehicle use year-round, after a horse-drawn carriage company expressed interest in operating during the winter months.
Horse that ran away in NYC “reportedly neglected”
Opposition to New York City’s horse-drawn carriage industry, which has been raging on and off for more than 30 years, reignited on January 8, 2026 after, “A Central Park carriage horse plowed directly into busy Midtown traffic,” bolting “onto Sixth Avenue near Central Park South after reportedly going unattended,” Nicole Rosenthal reported for the New York Post.
“The video shows the horse running across multiple lanes of traffic and crashing into about five vehicles, including a Yellow Cab, before coming to a stop at about 11:20 am,” Rosenthal wrote.
Police said no one was injured.
“The horse, a 25-year-old Standardbred named Destiny,” added Michael Levenson for the The New York Times“was examined by a veterinarian, and has since returned to work in Central Park, according to Christina Hansen, chief shop steward of the Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents 150 drivers and owners of the city’s carriages.”
Hansen told Levenson that Destiny is expected to retire at the end of the year.
Malaga, Spain bans horse-drawn carriages by 2025
Some towns with large tourism industries have housed their horse-drawn carriage businesses and other horse concessions in pastures for years.
Most recently, Málaga, Spain, population of 595,000 in a metropolitan area of almost one million people, an eighth of the size of New York City but attracting 14.4 million visitors in 2024, almost a quarter of the number of New York City, on October 6, 2025 made an immediate ban on horse-drawn carriages in year 3 that was not implemented in the first year.
Revoking the 25 horse-drawn carriage licenses still in effect, the Málaga city council paid each carriage owner the equivalent of €125,380 in Spanish currency, or $145,520 in US dollars.
Rival Spanish tourist destination Barcelona banned horse-drawn carriages in 2017, effective from June 2018, after a carriage horse died on a busy road.
(See Malaga, Spain bans horse-drawn carriages; NYC campaign mudslingers.)
Pony rides end in Paris, France
Paris, France, still has at least two horse-drawn carriage companies, Les Calèches de Versailles and Paris Carriages, operating near the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Élysées, and the Champ-de-Mars area, but in August 2023 concessions for pony rides were banned in the Champ de Mars, Parc Monceau, the start of Parc2, and Parc2 in Lusembour2.
Horses used to work about 150 days a year.
Montreal bans horse-drawn carriages in 2019; Chicago in 2020
A century and a half of horse-drawn carriages traveling through downtown Chicago––interrupted by a 17-year suspension, 1962-1979––will officially end before January 1, 2021, according to a Chicago City Council resolution adopted on April 24, 2020.
The 46-4 vote approved a March 2020 decision by the Chicago Committee on License & Consumer Protection to retire the last ten active licenses to operate horse-drawn carriages within the city, effective when they expire at the end of the year.
(See “Whoa!” shouted Chicago to the horse-drawn carriages.)
The last carriage horses in Montreal, Quebec, must be off the streets before sunset on December 31, 2019.
(See Montreal’s carriage horse trade ends, after 354 years.)
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