Contact: VGT – Vienna, Austria 
elisabeth.sablik@vgt.at

The City of Vienna also has a carriage horse trade, called Faikers. At face value, they look better than in NYC. The carriages appear to be clean and there are two horses per carriage, which holds four people. The drivers dress better than they do in NYC. The city is far less crowded. And when it is cold outside, all of the horses have a blanket.

However, it seems while the cosmetics address the visuals, the real story is harder to detect. As they do in NYC, the drivers seem to do what they want, illegally extending their day, removing their license plates so they are not reported. The organization called VGT, which stands for Verein Gegen Tierfabriken and translates to Association Against Animal Factories has waged a campaign for the carriage horses.   

Early in 2009. a horse dropped dead on their streets - heart attack? Who knows.

From the VGT web site: "These horses are forced to work 14 hours a day. At the end of the day they are then housed in underground stables that until recently were kept secret somewhere in the city of Vienna. The horses are never able to experience an open field and unless they are working, they are never allowed to experience an outside environment. "