Died for tourists’ pleasure: Carriage-ride horse drops dead on Melbourne street

There are fresh calls to ban horse-drawn carriages in Melbourne after a photograph of a dead horse still hitched up to a carriage emerged online earlier this week.

Animal rights advocate group Melbourne Against Horse-Drawn Carriage broke the heartbreaking story on Sunday afternoon, revealing the poor horse collapsed on Arden Street, North Melbourne earlier that day. The animal rights group later claimed the horse had suffered a heart attack, although this information is yet to be verified. It also claimed in a Facebook post that the horse was owned by Unique Carriage Hire and Distinctive Melbourne Carriages, but the company told Starts at 60 it was not.

The animal rights groups has started an online petition calling for horse carriage rides for tourists to be banned. At the time of writing, the petition had more than 38,000 signatures.

The distressing photo, shared to the group’s Facebook page, shows the white horse lying on the ground, covered with a blanket while still hitched up to the carriage.

“Rest in peace,” the group wrote on Facebook. “We still don’t know who you are, but we do know [that] you died at the hands of Melbourne’s horse-drawn carriage trade. At this stage we are unsure whose company the dead horse was exploited by, but the fact remains, they all have blood on their hands.

“We have contacted Victoria Police and the City of Melbourne and await answers. Please share and never ride in a carriage.”

The group’s campaign director Kristin Leigh later said in a seperate statement that the photo was “sickening” and something had to be done immediately.

“It was always only going to be a matter of time before this occurred,” she said on Thursday, news.com.au reports.

“We are devastated for the poor horse who seemingly died at the hands of these operators. We are demanding the Road Safety Minister ban horse-drawn vehicles from Victorian roads entirely – horses are not vehicles, but this is what they are considered to be under the 1986 Victorian Road Safety Act. This must be amended immediately.”

Animal Justice MP Andy Meddick backed the fresh calls to ban horse-drawn carriages in Melbourne, saying the “truly heartbreaking” events that took place on Sunday could’ve easily been prevented.

“To this poor horse — I am just so sorry,” he wrote on Facebook Monday. “The death of a carriage horse in Melbourne’s CBD yesterday is truly heartbreaking.

“The worst part is, it was totally preventable. Carriages should have been completely banned from the city many years ago. Horses and cars on busy city streets don’t mix. It’s that simple. It isn’t just an animal welfare issue, it’s a road safety issue too.

“The Minister for Roads and Melbourne City Council must work together to make this happen, rather than passing responsibility back and forth to each other. Thank you to Melbourne Against Horse-Drawn Carriages for continuing to highlight this outdated trade.”

Other social media users jumped on the animal right’s Facebook page to express their frustrations. “This is not acceptable tourism in this day and age,” one commenter wrote. “I’m totally disgusted.”

Another was baffled that horse-drawn carriages are still operating, writing: “Why would people want to ride in a carriage in the middle of a busy city, really?

While a third said it was simply just “heartbreaking”. “Horses don’t belong in busy cities dragging carriages anymore, so many other ways people can experience Melbourne while not putting animals in danger of being overworked or injured from road accidents,” they wrote.

The news comes about a year after New York City tightened its horse-drawn carriages regulations after a 12-year-old horse named Aisha collapsed in Central Park. The horse was sadly euthanised later that day. The incident caused an uproar from animal right advocates around the US. Some months later Chicago imposed a city-wide ban on horse-drawn carriages. New York City didn’t fully ban the practice, however, the city did bring in tighter regulations. Now, carriages must remain in the park.

And it’s not the first time Melburnians backed calls to ban horse-drawn carriages in the state. The Animal Justice Party (AJP) has been petitioning for its ban for years. As a result, in 2017, the Melbourne City Council announced that it would no longer issue permits to CBD horse-drawn carriage operators.