New York
Rebecca, a nine-year-old brown mare, waited patiently for customers in a line of horse-drawn carriages on a street next to Central Park. The air was heavy with farm-like odours.
Such sights and smells have been part of New York for as long as the city has existed. But Rebecca and her peers are the subject of almost constant controversy.
In the past six weeks, two carriage horses have bolted on busy streets, hitting cars and injuring themselves and the drivers. These incidents triggered a protest at City Hall last week as activists against animal cruelty called on the mayor to ban horse-drawn carriages.
'These horses have to work in extreme heat and cold. They work long hours and they are overloaded. It's very cruel,' said Elizabeth Forel, of the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages, set up early last year.
Although the city does have laws to protect the 200 or so horses in the carriage business, such as mandating breaks when the temperature is above 32 degrees Celsius or below minus 7 degrees, enforcement relies on a volunteer inspector who has to witness violations to issue a summons.
Jill Weitz, who co-founded the coalition with Ms Forel, says she has seen many cases of cruelty when the inspectors are not around, including a carriage driver pulling the head of his drinking horse from a water bucket because customers were waiting. 'I heard him saying, 'I'll show him who's the boss'.' She also says she saw horses forced to work in a recent heat wave.