Not Riders' Law. Ryder's Law.

I am guilty, I am sorry, they deserve better, and that is why I advocate for their freedom.

Because of my own long history of riding professionally and owning horses for personal pleasure, I am guilty of exploiting them for financial gain, participating in cruel industries, using ponies for entertainment and sport, and demanding that they be alternately my best friends, my children and my therapists.

Animals are not ours to use in any way, and what happened for horses last week in Philadelphia, New York and Los Angeles is really hitting home in my heart.

Ryder’s Law was first introduced in 2022 as people became interested in the welfare of carriage horses laboring in Central Park. A servant called Ryder collapsed from exhaustion and later died.

Earlier this month, Lady crumpled and expired at a Manhattan intersection. Deniz foundered and died while pulling tourists in Central Park. He had paused to nibble on a curbside shrub – Japanese yew – and a single mouthful had enough toxin to kill him.

In May, Otis and Troy collided, a carriage overturned, and the driver was trapped and injured. Troy was “brand new to the industry” and “getting acclimated” but got scared, reared up and crossed wheels with the carriage in front of him.

In January, Destiny ran into traffic and hit five vehicles. Destiny, who was left unattended and spooked by an e-bike, was 25 years old and returned to “active duty” within days. Maximum allowable age for active carriage horses in NYC is 26.

All of this and more, but New York City’s leaders remained in gridlock, volleyed between campaign funds from animal activists and the TWU Local 100. That union of about 40,000 workers has massive political leverage and money, and it pulled off a $1 million advertising blitz against Ryder’s Law.

You’ve likely heard what happened last week: In order to take a photo for the family of tourists, a carriage driver let go of his horse. Sampson, newly enslaved to the “job,” did what horses – prey animals! – do when they are scared. Something foreign and monstrous to his mind spooked him, and he took flight for his life. This is an instinctual get-me-the-fuck-out-of-here, and it did not matter what or who was attached to him.

The New York Times reported that Romanch Mahajan, 18, died trying to save his mother. When Sampson bolted, Romanch's mother fell out of the carriage, and he jumped out after her, smashing his head.

TWU Local was still worried about the livelihood of 170 unionized drivers, plus barn employees, farriers and other horse-related workers. Still arguing that many are immigrants and would require extensive “workforce retraining programs” – even though new mayor Mamdani has reiterated his pledge to help workers transition to new jobs.

Still babbling that carriages are iconic, central to the identity of Central Park and key to tourism for the past 150 years.

But last week’s crash, with the first human fatality, prompted the stagnant City Council to schedule an emergency public hearing for July 15. If passed, the reintroduced legislation would freeze all current carriage horse licenses and completely phase out the horse-drawn carriage industry from city parks by 2028.

Yes! Because this is Ryder’s Law, not Riders’ Law.

Use your own two feet, rent a bike or scooter, take a pedicab. Use electric carriages if you are so nostalgic and uncreative. Human desire to have a vacation and a city’s desire for tourist dollars must not include the suffering of sentient beings. Full stop.

There are no statewide bans on horse-drawn carriages, but Philadelphia last week finally ended it after a relentless public awareness campaign by local animal rights organizations, Carriage Horse Freedom and Revolution Philadelphia and others.

In moving forward with horse-free streets, Philly joins Chicago, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Reno, Biloxi and others. Cities outside the US are way ahead, of course; horse-drawn carriages are banned in London and Oxford, Paris, Montreal and Toronto, Barcelona, Beijing, Melbourne, Mumbai and Brussels.

Meanwhile, also last week, Los Angeles City Council found itself in a chute. Activists led by PETA and the Animal Legal Defense Fund want to ban rodeos within city limits. They held an emergency rally at City Hall, coming up against severe backlash from traditional equestrian communities and fans of strap-ons. I mean bucking straps. Sorry, couldn’t help myself.

Like the timeline for Ryder’s Law, Council has taken no action on this draft ordinance since it was introduced two years ago. Now it faces an automatic expiration date at the end of this month, and if it is not put on the city’s Art, Parks, Libraries, and Community Enrichment Committee June 23 agenda, it can’t be voted on at all.

California towns that have banned rodeos include Pasadena, Irvine, San Francisco, Laguna Woods, Chino Hills. Alameda and Contra Costa counties have bans related to rodeo activities.

Rodeo is on my neighbors’ minds, too. Residents here have been lamenting that, for the 75th Anniversary of the Annual Grubstake Days celebration last month, there was no professional rodeo for the first time in recent memory. The rodeo wasn’t cancelled because residents wanted to end animal suffering and exploitation: it was dropped because the town’s chamber of commerce said it didn’t have the money for the livestock fees and liability insurance.

And sure enough, last week at the Yucca Valley Town Council meeting, people came forward during public comment to request that the town help bring back the damn rodeo. A woman said she’s leading the committee for 2027, and it needs about $140,000 to bring the “spirit of the American West to Yucca Valley.” Kids talked from the podium about how much they love to ride, how going to the rodeo is a family tradition, and how much money it raises for local businesses. A councilman reminisced about his own equine endeavors, and others on the board concurred how patriotic and culturally significant the rodeo is. It was a love fest for the perceived cowboy/cowgirl lifestyle out here.

As I feel during most council meetings, I wanted to tear my hair out but mostly I just cried.

So it was a week of the horse in a year of the Fire Horse in the lore of the Chinese zodiac. Ironically – always – the horse is a symbol of freedom. Fire is about illumination and clarity, innovation, action and leadership. The elements together are said to bring volatile but rapid global and personal change.

I only hope this is true as we humans battle traditional cultural norms that keep us locked in speciesism, looking back to dark ages of enslavement and repeating the tired mantras that bow to money, status, patriotism, Christian family values, and the egoic desire to be perceived as ruggedly independent, or just ruggedly big-buckled.