On Saturday, a horse fell down on the Main Avenue hill while hauling around a massive sleigh for Shamrock Carriages. (Main Avenue is the steep, brick-lined incline between West 9th and the Flats, which is, objectively speaking, an insane place to take a horse.) A Facebook post about the situation ended up attracting thousands of comments over the weekend, with most people remarking that this demonstrates a very clear danger to the animal and damning ineptitude on the part of the carriage operator.
“He was clearly terrified because he kept peeing everywhere and was so exhausted he was not able to stand,” Evie Grabsky wrote on Facebook, “and yet the carriage driver was trying to get him down the hill and to keep going instead of pull[ing] him off to the side of the road to avoid being hit by a car like many horses being used for this do.”
Video of the later part of the incident shows the horse lying on the ground as people try to help it up. Once it’s upright, the horse runs down the hill into late-night bumper-to-bumper Flats traffic before falling down again. Many people are seen coming to the aid of the horse, while the driver mostly gives the crowd the cold shoulder and fusses with the horse’s harness.
Shamrock Carriages has disabled its Facebook page. Scene spoke with several people who are looking into the possibility of a humane investigation into this matter. (Update: The city will launch an investigation into Shamrock Carriages.) A Change.org petition seeking a ban on horse-drawn carriages in Cleveland has been revived.
This article appears in Jul 12-18, 2017.
That Shamrock Carriages disabled its Facebook page says it all. And hiding like cowards may be providing a big (sickening) sign on the health & welfare of the horses .
I will be happy to adopt that horse, he will have a life of getting fat on good food and NO WORK EVER AGAIN.
Getting “fat on food” with “no work ever again” is also a cruelty. As a professional horsewoman, I can testify that horses need a job that affords dignity and praise and just the right amount of nutritious food. (And ideally a big pasture with lots of sunshine , fresh air, and other horses.) Overfed, underactive horses suffer from founder, colic, and other physical, mental, and emotional problems.
THE OWNER IS PETE LENEGHAN – OWNS THE TREEHOUSE IN TREMONT AND THE STONE MAD ON WEST 65TH
If this horse is being ‘retired’ that is the carriage euphemism for going to auction. He will no doubt head to Sugar Creek – a notorious kill buyer auction. If that owner thinks this ‘job’ is so easy…he should have to pull a carriage full of humans in roller skates up and down that hill….
Sounds like he had metal shoes on the horse (SLIPPERY) and the carriage was overloaded.
Someone needs to be aware this horse is going to auction to really give him a good home an d not a one way ticket to Canada for slaughter.
Who the hell are their customers? Drunken Millennial bros and their arm candy in the Flats? Yupster tourists who want to look cool? Hipsters who want a “romantic” vehicle in which to give their future brides a ring with a big shiny rock?
Horses have to suffer unspeakable cruelty and inhumane conditions…for THESE entitled pieces of shit?
How many people reading this thread are longtime residents of Cleveland…or lifers, born and raised in this city? Fess up…WHEN was the last time YOU rode in a horse-drawn carriage?
In my 25 years here, I have NEVER, not once, ridden in one of them. Never felt the need or the desire. And not once in all the decades before that, when I lived in Chicago, did I want to do so.. And I don’t feel deprived, or think I have missed much. Riding in one will never be on my bucket list.
Other cities have banned these carriages. New York and Chicago have put heavy restrictions on their routes, and strictly monitor the care of these animals. For all I know, they don’t even allow them in NYC or Chicago anymore…I don’t get to either city all that much.
Who the hell allowed them to travel up one of the steepest streets in town? WTF? Horrible. Inexcusable.
Frankly, I don’t even see the need for such conveyances…not when it condemns these creatures to utter misery so that a few elitist assholes can have a thrill.
Get rid of them. Now.
And after you are done reading my pissed-off rant, do something positive…sign the petition.
p,s, I will think twice about ever having a shandy on the patio at the Treehouse again.
Thanks for the heads-up.
Chuckles the Clown
It’s alright for horses to have jobs and do work, they have done that for centuries. The problem is being mistreated by their owners. This is a horrible story and if that poor horse is being “retired” someone should have the opportunity to adopt him so that he can live out the rest of his years in a pasture. Otherwise he will go Sugar Creek and the slaughterhouse. That will be his reward for his years of hard work.
So sad poor horse I’ll adopt him and spoil him he’ll never have to work again . That’s animal abuse