Readers: Horses Pulling Carriages Downtown Are Fine; City Vet Makes Recommendations
More than half the readers last week indicated the horses pulling carriages downtown are fine, here are the results:
Q: St. Louis’ Director of Health wants to ban horse carriages, we should:
- ignore her, the horses are fine 96 [51.61%]
- Increase fees on operators to fund inspection & enforcement to protect the horses 50 [26.88%]
- ban them, it’s cruel to the horses 27 [14.52%]
- Unsure/No Opinion 12 [6.45%]
- Other: 1 [0.54%] “Streets of DT smell like pee, they should be banned or clean up after themselves”
While I don’t think they should be banned, I do see room for improvement.
The city’s veterinarian also sees room to improve, here’s her recommendations:
Based upon my assessment, investigation, and professional judgement, I recommend the following actions be taken at a minimum:
- Ensure that carriage horse stables operating within the city are held to the current standards and best practices of equine husbandry including but not limited to:Work with carriage horse stables to improve record keeping and access to records such as: medical records (including most recent Coggins test); farrier records; work schedules; and number of weeks on/off duty.
- Adequate fresh air and ventilation (i.e. individual and industrial fans in good repair combined with windows, doors, grates, vents and eaves).
- Fastidious cleaning practices to minimize horse exposure to dust, debris and odor.
- Ideally, storage of food and bedding materials in an area separate from the horse barn.
- Develop a system of welfare checks enacted by Health Department Animal Control Officers and City Veterinarian. This would include inspection of stables as well as horses working in the field at various times of day/night.
- Develop a consistent hot weather policy for working carriage horses and ensure that it is adhered to.
- Requiring that the individual horse, Moose, undergo a complete respiratory diagnostic workup and is found to be healthy and unremarkable prior to his return to the city for use as a carriage horse. Primarily, he should have Bronchoalveolar Lavage performed to rulein or ruleout Inflammatory Airway Disease (IAD) and quantify the severity of the condition if present, as a variety of management techniques and therapies may be indicated at that time. This workup should be performed in collaboration with the City Veterinarian.
Included in this document find only the earnest observations, opinions, and recommendations of the veterinarian serving the City of St. Louis.
Dr. Sarah Frei Veterinarian,
City of St Louis 2801 Clark Ave St. Louis, MO 63103
You can read her full assessment here. Additional information is available on the Department of Health’s Carriage Horse page. The press release indicates: “The Department is also requiring that, effective immediately, all horses not be worked when the maximum heat index reaches 100 degrees on any single day.”
— Steve Patterson
I am no vet, but it sure doesn’t look like those poor horses are enjoying pulling people and inhaling all the engine exhaust. As far as the horse manure piles you see from time to time, I would rather have that then what i see in some of the parks being left from those human cockroaches [panhandlers, street urchins]. I think at a certain heat index, that these carriages not used. thanks, over and out, SARGE
Horses have been used for thousands of years, it might be a good idea to talk to the Amish, who still use horses about their thoughts on the matter. As far as Sgt Stadanko suggesting it doesn’t look like those horses are enjoying themselves, that also goes for the vast majority of people working at Walmart, McDonalds and so on. Personally I think if they are inhaling engine exhaust we should get rid of the auto’s rather than the horses.
We, as a society, have allowed auto’s to become a dead end. (cities don’t function properly, oceans rise).The horses are not the problem. (I had to laugh at Ray Hartman on Donnybrook complaining that it slowed the autos in Forest Park down, as if cars zipping by quickly is the highest value a society can treasure) By the way I owned a couple of Belgian draft horses I bought from some Amish in Illinois. They were well trained and I used them for a number of years on a farm. They do like to work.