NYC activists carriage-horse threats prove theyll use any excuse to force a ban

Just hours after Deniz, a beautiful brown-and-white carriage horse, collapsed and died in Central Park June 9, the activists pounced.Edita Birnkrant, executive director of the anti-carriage group NYCLASS, posted a video of Deniz in his final moments, lying on the carriage drive.“They’re f—ing abusers,” a male narrator says. “He doesn’t care,” the observer declares of the carriage driver.The video ends with a blaring political headline: “Pass Ryder’s Law Before Another Horse Is Killed.”That’s the City Council bill, long pushed by NYCLASS, that would ban carriage rides in New York City — and force a largely immigrant workforce into unemployment.Birnkrant, along with activist groups like PETA and City Council Members Christopher Marte, Frank Morano and others, immediately used Deniz’s sudden death to push a narrative portraying carriage drivers as cold-hearted animal abusers.Their rush-to-judgment propaganda sparked a barrage of hate directed at New York’s carriage drivers, 95% of whom have come to the US from countries around the world: Ecuador, Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, Tajikistan, Italy, Ireland, Poland and many more.“Kill that f—ing immigrant,” read one vitriolic post. “Who owns these horse and carriage business? Gypsies? Foreigners?” went another.In the park, carriage drivers have been cursed and menaced.One activist spat at a group of carriage-riding tourists from India, splattering one of them.Even elected officials who voted against Ryder’s Law last year were targeted.Manhattan Councilwoman Carmen De La Rosa received a string of frightening messages: “I hope you suffocate and die a slow death”; “So either she passes the ban or I pray to God to burn down their houses.”Dr.Gabriel Cook, the respected veterinarian who cares for many of the horses, insisted on sending Deniz’s body to Cornell University for a necropsy conducted by its pathologists.That’s standard in our industry — maintaining a high standard o...