Protesters don't love Valentine's horse-carriage rides

To celebrate their wedding anniversary, South Jersey residents Hope and Steve Pastor yesterday took a horse-and-carriage ride at Independence Mall.

"It's something romantic," Hope said.

Some animal-rights activists would beg to differ.

Timed to Valentine's Day, a group called Peace Advocacy Network organized a protest at the historic site yesterday, claiming that the rides harm the horses and therefore are anything but romantic.

Holding signs and distributing flyers, a handful of protesters stood across the sidewalk from a line of carriages on 6th Street between Market and Chestnut.

"Have a heart, don't ride a horse-drawn carriage," one heart-shaped sign read.

Some fliers argued that horses "are forced to work on hard pavement in dangerous, unhealthful, and unnatural conditions," and that the rides pose a threat to public safety. The fliers cited an incident in April when a car crashed into a carriage at 6th and Race streets, injuring three people.

The group, which has been protesting the carriages for two years, wants the city to ban the rides.

"It's unnecessary, it's exploitative, it's mistreatment," said the group's vice president, Brandon Gittelman. "There are other ways to entertain and make money these days."

But not everyone in the historic district yesterday thought the rides were animal-unfriendly.

Christina Hansen, co-founder of Blue Star Equiculture, a Massachusetts group that provides retirement homes for working horses, was on hand distributing literature that refutes the demonstrators' claims.

Hansen's group argues that the horses can handle a range of weather conditions, can easily pull the load and can walk on asphalt without difficulty. Mistreatment "simply isn't true," she said.

Hansen, a former Philadelphia carriage driver, estimated that as many as 40 carriage horses are on Philadelphia streets during the summer. The average horse weighs 1,200 to 2,000 pounds, and the typical empty carriage weighs 900 to 1,000 pounds, according to Hansen's group.

The tourist carriages have been operating in the historic district since 1976, according to Dennis Martin, a carriage driver and trainer for Olde City Carriage Co.

Martin doesn't think that the protests hurt business. In fact, he said, he's seen people pick up protest pamphlets and then get into carriages.

He said that his horse, Albert, is his "best friend," and said that the animals are treated well.

"Horses are just like people. They're all individuals," he said. "If the horses didn't want to do the job, they wouldn't do the job."