The spotlight on the treatment of horses forced to cart plump tourists and pseudo-“influencers” looking to cultivate the “ultimate NYC experience” has ramped up again in the wake of certain media footage. Specifically, the barrage of photos and videos documenting the collapse of a horse named Ryder. On August 11th, the overheated, overworked creature suffering from EPM fell to the ground somewhere near 45th and 9th, effectively emulating Boxer, the horse from Animal Farm. And, like Boxer, perhaps carriage horses tell themselves that if they just work “a little harder,” maybe their masters will reward them in some way, or at least give them a fucking break now and again. Not so. And why? Because that’s capitalism, baby—and nowhere else on Earth better represents that ism than New York.
These carriage horses being run ragged for the apparent “joy” of khaki shorts-wearing Midwesterners is nothing new. Nor is the rallying cry to end the use of carriage horses altogether. But something about this incident feels different. Like one final plea from the horses themselves before the planet genuinely becomes too hot to expect an animal to function in these conditions. Which also include breathing in exhaust from the cars they’re expected to “trot happily” behind.
At the time when Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) was prominently featured being the twat her character embodied, maybe it was easier to “get away with” so carefreely being seen riding around in a carriage like a slack-jawed idiot hoping to manufacture some “magic” and “romance” of the variety that everyone is always going on about in terms of what New York has to offer. In fact, the main reason she did it was to show Big (Chris Noth) how much he would miss NYC by taking him for a night out on the town that would remind him of all the “quintessential” things about the city that he was letting go of by deciding to move away.
This, apparently, included a carriage ride through Central Park. One that gets set up with Carrie’s narration, “That night, after the rain, after the dinner, after the dancing, I took Big for a ride.” Big rightly comments, “I can’t believe you actually talked me into this. Buggy ride in Central Park. Very corny.” The words he was actually looking for were “utterly cruel” and “totally narcissistic.” Carrie rebuffs, “Nope. Classic.” And she’s not wrong. For it is “classic New York” to be a dick to the “little people,” including horses like Ryder. Ryder, who, after collapsing to the ground was whipped and berated while being told, “Get up! Come on! Get up! Get up!” After all, the horse is not seen as a living creature to this person, but as a source of livelihood designed to allow yet another abusive type to “afford” living in the nexus of sado-masochism. Ergo, Carrie’s ability to thrive in such a place as well… despite displaying absolutely no signs of grit. Instead, New York is meant to offer “de facto grit” to the snowflakes of Carrie’s variety. Especially in 2002, when this “I Heart NY” episode aired shortly after the city was still reeling from 9/11. And Giuliani was suddenly being upheld as a “beacon of light” in a crisis. How quickly the city will sell itself out to the very things it once claimed to hate (i.e., Giuliani).
In this regard, too, New York is a town that feeds on its own nostalgia. Longing for a time when it wasn’t such a hollow, bent-over and puckered-up version of itself. The nostalgia haze—complete with the horse and carriage ride Carrie opts for—is how it continues to attract and allure so many suckers determined to believe they can still live life like it’s 2002 and a Sex and the City episode (because no, Girls never quite took over for the romanticized vision people have of NYC).
Just as Carrie thinks she’s about to “get lucky” with Big again because the carriage ride has all at once made the conditions “ripe” for a “Hollywood kiss” (despite New York’s claims of abhorring West Coastian-made tropes), her cell phone—then a novelty item—rings. Turns out, Carrie has to get to the hospital because Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) has gone into labor. When the coachman is asked to take them there, he claims, “I can’t leave the park. I’ll get a fine.” And then, as though to further emphasize how disgustingly motivated by money everything in New York is, Big offers him four hundred dollars to ignore “protocol.” Not that coachmen don’t do that every day with regard to their maltreatment of horses.
When Big gets Carrie to her destination and she scurries out of the carriage, he remarks, “I can’t believe you’re leaving me alone with a horse and buggy.” Mainly because it puts all the onus on him to look like the asshole that anyone is who decides to partake of this “NYC tradition.” Carrie replies tritely, “Thanks for the ride, Prince Charming.” Because yes, dumb bitches like Carrie are still duped into believing that a carriage ride in the park equates to “swooning romance” of a fairy tale caliber (Cinderella and all that rot).
Unfortunately, this will not be the only instance of Carrie dabbling in callousness toward carriage horses either. In addition to later riding in a sleigh with Aleksandr Petrovsky (Mikhail Baryshnikov) to accent that “romantic” aura the writers seem to think can only come from a horse carrying dead weight, there is another earlier moment in the series, “Ex and the City,” that finds her encountering a carriage horse being blatantly abused by its coachman. In typical Carrie fashion, she just stares on doing nothing, thinking about how the horse relates to her as she muses, “Maybe I didn’t break Big. Maybe the problem was, he couldn’t break me.” Yes Carrie, way to make this animal’s flagrant maltreatment all about you.
And, of course, even in 2021, before Chris Noth’s sexual misconduct came to light, the rebooted version of the show would decide to film another carriage scene of Big and Carrie to harken back—weaponizing that form of nostalgia NY so loves—to the “I Heart NY” episode. But the only thing to “heart” about NY, ultimately, is that it keeps all the most prominent dickheads rounded up in one place. Riding off into the toxic sunset in a horse-drawn carriage, content in their delusions of grandeur. For, as Miranda told Carrie in “Splat!” just before the scene cuts to her riding in a sleigh with Petrovsky, “You’re living in a fantasy!” And those living in a fantasy—however dark—cannot be told shit about how their fantasy is negatively impacting others, least of all “mere” horses.
