An animal welfare group is proposing legislation dictating retirement care of carriage horses that have worked in New York City. | Photo: iStock

An organization that unsuccessfully called to end New York City’s horse-drawn carriage industry now wants the city to regulate where and how carriage horses retire. In response, at least one carriage business operator maintains that the proposal isn’t in the horses’ best interest.

The proposal is the latest salvo in a long battle between the nonprofit New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets (NYCLASS) and horse-drawn carriage operators over the welfare of horses used in the city’s carriage industry. The  organization first called for a citywide horse-drawn carriage ban in 2013.

Since then, further regulations have been placed on the New York City carriage industry, including a 2018 measure that limits the industry to activity within Central Park and a 2019 law forbidding carriage horses from working when ambient temperatures reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit or higher