Video: Carriage Horse Collapses In Hell's Kitchen, Inflaming Debate

HELL'S KITCHEN, NY — Disturbing footage of a carriage horse that collapsed on a Hell's Kitchen street Wednesday has further inflamed a long-simmering debate over the animals' future in the city.

The horse collapsed on Ninth Avenue near West 45th Street late Wednesday afternoon, when temperatures were in the mid-80s with high humidity, the news site W42ST reported.

Video posted by the animal rights group NYCLASS shows the horse lying nearly motionless on the street as officers from the NYPD's Mounted Unit spray it with water in an apparent effort to cool it down.

The horse, a 14-year-old named Ryder, finally rose to its feet and walked into a waiting trailer, W42ST reported — adding that the horse's driver appeared "distraught" as the situation unfolded.

The incident came as the City Council considers a new bill that would ban horse carriages from Central Park and replace them with carriage-style electric vehicles.

Eliminating the horse-drawn carriages has been a long-held goal of animal rights activists, including NYCLASS. Bill de Blasio was elected mayor in 2013 in part by promising to ban them "on day one" — but he failed to do so, despite a last-minute push just before he left office last year.

Potential bans have been fiercely opposed by carriage drivers and their union, who contend that bans would destroy their livelihoods and insist that the horses are well cared for.

The new legislation has received a mixed reception, in part for its proposal to reintroduce vehicles into Central Park just a few years after the city banned cars there.

"I can't say now that I want to put the cars back in Central Park," Councilmember Gale Brewer, whose district includes the park, told Patch last week.

Related coverage: Central Park Horse Carriages Could Be Replaced By Electric Vehicles