Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages

NY DAILY NEWS  
9/15/07

Carriage horse dies after tree crash near Central Park

 A carriage horse spooked by the beat of a drum made a deadly dash near Central Park yesterday, crashing into a tree and breaking a hind leg before collapsing on the street. The 13-year-old mare, named Smoothie, went wild after a member of a break-dancing troupe cracked a snare drum behind her on Central Park South, the horse's owner and witnesses said. Smoothie broke free of her carriage and charged a tree and another carriage, sending a second horse plowing into a Mercedes-Benz about 4:30 p.m. "The horse ran against traffic and smashed into me," said the Mercedes' driver, Layquan Rakin, a 22-year-old male model from Queens. Rakin and his girlfriend, Lakesha Heidelberg, 20, were driving on Central Park South when the galloping steed raced toward their luxury sedan. "It ran straight toward my car, it came face-first," Rakin said. "I thought it was going to run right up my car." "I thought it was over," Heidelerg added. The second horse was not injured and no pedestrians were hurt during the chaos.

Smoothie died on the pavement near Center Drive as concerned tourists and New Yorkers attempted to comfort her. "This was a nice, gentle horse," said Smoothie's shattered owner, Cornelius Byrne of Manhattan. Byrne said the drum was sounded too close to Smoothie. "It was a terrible mistake around a mare," he said. "She was a nice horse. She would nuzzle. She was playful. She was special." Smoothie belonged to an Amish woman before being sold to Byrne. The mare had been working the circuit around Central Park for about a year, the owner said. The driver of Smoothie's carriage was standing alongside the cab with a passenger when the drum sounded, he said. "He walked up and was beating it behind the horse," said witness Roger Watkins, 59, of Connecticut. "It spooked the horse. The horse reared up and turned the carriage over. It was trying to get around the light pole on the sidewalk." The drummer could not be located last night. Byrne said Smoothie's driver took her death hard. "He's all broken up. He's hurting," Byrne said. "He's crying." Watkins said he helped guide the second horse away from the smashed Mercedes and tied it to a street pole so it wouldn't be hurt more. "I grabbed him by the bridle," he said. "I just calmed her down. Horses just want to know someone's in charge." Carolyn Daly, a spokeswoman for the Horse & Carriage Association of New York, called Smoothie's death "devastating." "These aren't just horses, these are their family," she said

To honor
Bobby II Freedom
previously known as Billy
ID# 2873 rescued by the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages and Equine Advocates on June 25, 2010 from the New Holland auctions.

In memory of
Lilly Rose O'Reilly
previously known
as Dada ID# 2711
R.I.P.August, 2007