A New Perspective Weighs-In On NYC's Horse Driven Carriage Dispute

New York City's horse carriage industry has long been a battle zone between those seeking to preserve the past and animal welfare advocates - with each side loudly voicing their opinions.

But for the very first time, Spoofeteria.com has gone 'straight to the horse's mouth' over the controversy, alas giving those who actually pull the carriages a platform to voice their concerns over the highly contentious issue.

"Pulling a carriage wouldn't be so bad if drivers from New Jersey would stay hell out of Manhattan," said Bubbles (right) while dodging traffic on 57th Street. "But hooves down, BMW's and limo drivers are the worst."

Smoothie (left), a horse known for delivering an unbelievably "smooth ride" for his passengers, criticized the economics of his industry.

"The biggest problem is I do all the pulling, and the coachman gets all the tips," he said while avoiding a series of potholes. "So would it kill the tourists I haul around all day to tip me a couple of bucks for the food carts? Or throw me a carrot, a few sugar cubes or an apple? No. I don't think it would."

Romeo and Rocky (right), a duo who work in Manhattan's Central Park, were upset over how the NYC horse carriage industry dictates their 'public persona'.

"We look like a parade float in a Gay Pride Parade for horses", complained Romeo while ignoring the sexual advances of a nearby gay stallion. "And these pink feathers on our heads makes us look like the 'Siegfried & Roy' of the equine community.

"And if our coachman, Fabrizio, wants to be gay, that's fine with us," Rocky added while giving the 'cool eye' to a passing mare. "But he has no right to two drag two very heterosexual American Quarter horses into his gay agenda."

Chompers (left), an Appaloosa horse known as an "agitator" among coachmen, has a proven way of settling the grievances of carriage horses.

"We've got to unionize," the gelding said while handing out pro-union literature to "brother horses" at a local stable. "to stop our greedy coachmen from literally 'pulling the reins' on our lives. Therefore", Chompers added, "I'm going to organize the NYC carriage horses, even if I end up like Jimmy Hoffa."

Buster & Gracie (right), two happily married mustangs spending their golden years at Equine Hills, a carriage horse retirement community in upstate New York, have different takes about today's NYC's horse carriage industry.

"Horses now have it a lot better than I ever did," Buster claimed while playing bingo. "Because in my day I had to deal with lax parking regulations, leaded gas and a pre-'pooper-scooper' law environment."

Gracie was more troubled with the current quality of retirement communities available to retired carriage horses.

"Equine Hills is hell on earth," she complained while eating lunch all by herself in a cafeteria. "There's never anything to do, all the employees are thieves and everyone around here calls me "a troublemaker" for no reason at all..

And I could go on and on about how my two colts threw me into Equine Hills to completely forget about me, to rot here all alone, even after all I've done for them, but nobody wants to here about my problems so I keep quiet."

"Don't listen to her," Buster interjected. "She's been nothing but a royal pain in the ass since she got to Equine Hills."

On a sadder note, Chompers, the horse who sought to unionize the NYC horse carriage industry, went missing yesterday on the eve of achieving a city-wide strike, and rumor has it the Tennessee Walking Horse now resides in 500 bottles of Elmer's Glue.