A runaway carriage horse that was captured on video bolting through Manhattan traffic and crashing into vehicles near Central Park has reignited a contentious debate over whether New York City should ban them.
The horse had no driver when it took off on Thursday, pulling its empty four-wheeled carriage across 59th Street and into oncoming traffic on Sixth Avenue. Videos showed the horse dashing through the intersection and its carriage sideswiping a taxi before a man who appeared to be a bystander stepped off the sidewalk and took its reins.
The New York Police Department said four to five vehicles had been damaged. No one was injured, the department said, adding that an investigation remained open.
“People were horrified, they were absolutely horrified,” Einer Ska, who saw the runaway horse, told ABC7, a New York television station. “Everybody was scrambling to get out of the way, hoping that they’re in no way going to be caught up in all of this.”
The horse, a 25-year-old Standardbred named Destiny, was checked out 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 the city’s 150 carriage drivers and owners.
“She did not get hurt in any way, shape or form,” Ms. Hansen said. But at 25 years old, Destiny is expected to retire next year, she said.
The incident added fuel to a heated debate over the carriage horses, which have long been a fixture in Central Park. Supporters say that they are part of the city’s old-world charm, and draw tourists. Critics call them a form of animal cruelty and have been pushing the city to enact a ban on them known as Ryder’s Law.
The proposed law was named for a carriage horse who was captured on video collapsing on a Midtown Manhattan street in 2022 and later died. In August 2025, a 15-year-old mare named Lady, who had worked in New York City for less than two months, collapsed and died at a Manhattan intersection. In September, a carriage horse named Bambi ran off with no driver, causing three passengers to jump out for their safety.
According to the Transport Workers Union, the carriage driver was standing near Destiny when the horse appeared to have been startled by a fast-moving Amazon e-bike with a cargo trailer. Amazon said its e-bikes are capped at 12 miles per hour, below the 15 m.p.h. city speed limit for e-bikes and e-scooters.
The union said it had notified city health officials, who regulate carriage horses, and was considering whether “internal actions will be taken regarding this individual driver.”
“Carriage drivers have the highest responsibility to care for their horses, and this falls far short of our standards,” Alexander Kemp, the union’s administrative vice president, said in a statement.
Edita Birnkrant, the executive director of the animal rights group NYCLASS, said that the New York City Council was failing in its legal obligation to protect public safety by allowing carriage horses to continue to operate. “Horses are unpredictable, nervous prey animals and their most hard-wired instinct is to run when frightened,” she said in an interview, adding that it was “a miracle no one was killed.”
The Transport Workers Union noted that the City Council’s Committee on Health voted down Ryder’s Law last year because, it said, members had rejected claims that the horses were being mistreated and denied adequate medical care.
“Special interest groups have been trying to ban carriage horses for nearly two decades,” Mr. Kemp said. “It’s time to turn the page and come together to improve even further the good care the horses currently receive while also protecting carriage-driver jobs that enable an overwhelmingly immigrant work force to put food on the table and take care of their families.”
Frank Riccobono, an owner and manager of NYC Horse Carriage Rides, said the city could help improve public safety by installing hitching posts. “This could have easily been avoided if the horse was tied,” he said.
Horses can be seriously injured, Ms. Birnkrant said, if they are spooked and try to run while tied to a hitching post. “Hitching posts do not solve the problem,” she said. “They increase the risk.”
A spokesman for the City Council speaker, Julie Menin, declined to comment on whether she would support or oppose a ban on carriage horses.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s press office did not respond to a request for comment. But Mr. Mamdani said at a news conference last month that he supported “removing” horse-drawn carriages from Central Park and that he looked forward to working with unions and community leaders “to actually deliver on that.”
Michael Levenson covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
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