CLINTON Park Stables’ Conor McHugh is sceptical of New York City Council’s plans to re-home carriage horses and re-skill 200-plus employees after recently voting to end the 160-year-old horse-drawn carriage horse trade.

“I wasn’t that surprised about the decision. We knew that it was coming, ever since there was a tragic accident when a young passenger [Romanch Mahajan] got killed when a horse got spooked.” The bill, named Romanch’s Law, was passed after the Council voted 40-7 last week to ban carriage horses in the city and Central Park by June 1st, 2028. Leitrim-born McHugh, a carriage driver for 40 years and co-owner of the Stables co-op in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen district, told the Irish Horse World that animal rights activists and real estate demands have threatened their livelihood for decades: “If you told me in 2012 that I’d still be here in 2026, I would have said I didn’t think that would be possible.”

While resigned to the vote outcome, he remains doubtful over proposed plans to retire carriage horses to sanctuaries and other jobs, saying: “Politicians will talk out of both sides of their mouth when it comes to these things and the solution that they come up with is, a lot of times, a lot different than what they’re saying, so I wouldn’t have much faith in that.

“Our lawyers say that it’s totally unconstitutional where you pass a law to take away people’s property and livelihood.

“A job fair for a driver, who’s both a horse person and a tour guide, is an unusual transition. It’s not like you’re transitioning from driving a train to a bus or something like that. I’m not even aware of any equestrian jobs in the city for people who live in the city, so I would be sceptical.”

He also felt that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who strongly supported the ban, was being inconsistent for supporting a law that would destroy the horse carriage industry without clear compensation.“The first time he [Mamdani] became noticed was when he actually went on hunger strike [in 2021] in support of the yellow cab medallion owners, who got wiped off the map by Uber. The traditional yellow cab is like a signature of New York City. And then here he is now, saying that he’s going to wipe us out.”