A BLACK NIGHT HORSE
Peggy Parker – 1988
One oppressively hot July day, I walked into a
carriage horse stable.
Up a steep ramp to the second floor were about
twenty horses, all confined in narrow standing stalls. Ventilation was
non-existent, two tiny window fans were not working. There was no bedding, urine
pooled around mounds of manure at horses’ feet. The stalls had no water or salt
blocks. The communal watering-trough was bone-dry. The heat and odor was
overwhelming.
The lone attendant showed me his all-black horse,
“Misty,” whom he had purchased a few weeks before for $300. “She was cheap, had
a big bump on her forehead. She’s my night horse,” he informed me. A “night
horse” is used after dark, and is often unsightly or unfit.
Only three weeks later, Misty was dead. She had
come back to her stable at 5:30 a.m. bleeding from the nose and mouth. She
collapsed and suffered for an hour before a vet was called. The diagnosis was
heat stroke resulting from dehydration. Apparently, Misty had been driven all
night on city asphalt, but never given water. She was destroyed and her body
dumped on a pier.
Misty’s short life and death in the canyons of
New York, like the fate of so many other carriage horses, went unnoticed.
We are dedicated, however, to bringing simple
humane treatment to these helpless creatures, and not only improving their
working and living conditions, but also the safety of the public.
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