Results tagged “horses”

A plan to shut down a 45th Street stable to make room for affordable housing could put 32 carriage horses on the street — and 17 carriage drivers out of work. Horses in the Shamrock Stables might lose their only place to hit the hay (sorry) by December, when the animals and their drivers are booted from their city-owned building so the Department of Housing Preservation and Development can construct 1,300 units of affordable housing and 10,000 feet of retail space.

OTB is really starting to resemble that schoolyard friend who keeps on losing a bet and immediately fires back, "Okay, how 'bout double or nothing?" In what he called an "unprecedented but necessary move," yesterday Governor Paterson issued an executive order authorizing Off-Track Betting to file for bankruptcy protection. Last year OTB was one of the forgotten beneficiaries in the Year of the Bailout, the money-bleeding agency rescued by the governor in a deal with the mayor. At its current pace, OTB would run out of money completely by next spring. Paterson said Tuesday's move was necessary to close failing parlors, and expand automated-betting systems to pay off the agency's mounting debts. The Times has an in-depth look as to just how much money the agency wastes by insisting on company cars for its city employees. One gray ponytailed OTB patron told the paper, “I tell you what my bookie in the Bronx don’t have this problem. He always has money. Nowhere else in the world does a bookie lose money.”

       

When the NY Times wrote about The Hole back in 2004, they said, "It is the closest thing New York has to a border town... an isolated neighborhood that straddles the Brooklyn-Queens line. The five blocks at the junction of Conduit Avenue and Linden Boulevard have all the characteristics of a frontier town in the Old West." Now, years later, Nate Kensinger has visited the almost-ghost town and come back to tell the story with plenty of gorgeous images of the decay. He says, "The Hole is literally a hole. It is 30 feet below grade... sunken down from the busy roads around it. The neighborhood floods often and is only a few feet above the water table, so its homes are 'not incorporated into the city sewer system. They all have cesspools.'"

Uh oh, seems both dogs and horses are marking their territory in Brooklyn... but only one animal's owners are obligated by law to pick up their pet's mess. The Brooklyn Paper reports that a common sight in Kensington and Park Slope is that of horse waste. Yuck. The paper note that "the decades-old city law mandating pet owners to remove excrement from sidewalks applies to dogs and dogs alone, according to the Sanitation Department." Do the main culprits at the Kensington Stables feel any pangs of guilt for not cleaning up after their horses? Apparently it falls on the city, but they do say, “Generally, the barn hands pick up around the neighborhood. I have made it a general policy to handle this. We don’t make a stink out of it.” Time is off the essence, however, and reportedly it takes hours or more for a volunteer to come and scoop the poop—one resident told the paper, “It smells like a toilet" in Prospect Park.

If you hear that the "Luv Gov" is chasing after Black-eyed Susans this weekend, it's probably not what you think. One of the thirteen horses entered into the Preakness Stakes this weekend in Baltimore, Luv Gov (pictured) has been given the same nickname slapped on former Governor Eliot Spitzer. The thoroughbred's owner is Marylou Whitney, an upstate Republican with another horse named "Ninth Client."

Last night Liam Neeson appeared on the Daily Show and he swears carriage horses are treated like kings in New York, in fact, he'd even live in their stables himself! After some back and forth about the topic, Jon Stewart compromised with the actor, saying that if they could build a horse-friendly space in a meadow in Central Park it might be okay. Neeson says horses don't like the freedom of running in fields, however, and declared: "Everyone thinks cows in the fields would rather be running wild—that's bullsh**, horses don't either."

The two carriage horses who ran amok through Bay Ridge Sunday are recovering nicely on a Connecticut farm, the Daily News reports. Stormy and Elvis, snow-colored, 2,000-pound Percherons who work pulling buggies for Valentine Carriage, survived with just scratched-up legs. However, driver Richie Valentine Jacobson fractured five ribs after being thrown from the carriage onto a town car's windshield. The buggy was about to pick up bride-to-be Nunzie Lumberto when a pole snapped, spooking the horses, who took off. In spite of his injuries, Jacobson (in Renaissance costume) caught up, grabbed the reins, and steered the carriage into a light pole, totaling it. He's not saying he's a hero, but he puts it this way, "I jeopardized my own life to make sure no one else would be in harm's way."

A horse-drawn buggy was totaled yesterday during a wild stampede through Borough Park in Brooklyn that left one car with a shattered windshield, the Post reports. The white buggy was a block away from picking up bride-to-be Nunzie Lumberto, who was waiting to be escorted to her wedding at Regina Hall of St. Rosalie's in Dyker Heights. But before she could get in, a wooden bar under the buggy snapped, striking one of the horses in the rear. Then it was off to the races!

If you have a question for Governor David Paterson, WCBS 880 is taking questions before its 4 p.m. live interview with him. So far, the questions are about medical liability reform and the Atlantic Yards project. You'll be able to listen to the interview here. And in tangential governor news, horses named "Luv Gov" and "Ninth Client" ran at Saratoga these past few days--Ninth Client was tied for first yesterday.

"Speedy," starring Harold Lloyd as a less-than-safe NYC driver, was released in 1928 and illustrates how New Yorkers gained their reputation as being somewhat reckless. The above clip features Babe Ruth himself requesting Lloyd the cabbie to get him to Yankee stadium in a hurry, and then soon regretting it as Speedy is more interested in chatting up his sports idol than keeping his eyes on the road.

It may be a long hike from Lexington Ave. to Lexington, Kentucky, and even farther to Louisville, but New Yorkers are not immune to the draw of the 'sport of kings.' The 134th running of the Kentucky Derby takes place today and many people around the city will be doing what most seem to do at the races--wagering and drinking. Mapfaced has a guide on bars to watch the races at Churchill Downs.

A pair of lawsuits from injured anti-war protesters have caused the NYPD to re-think its pro-active policing policies when it comes to crowd control. The suits, brought against the City by the New York Civil Liberties Union, ended in a settlement that included an agreement that cops would be a little more lenient with protesters.

After years of warnings, the city's Off Track Betting business may be out of luck as Mayor Bloomberg said the city may pull its funding and let the gambling business close. He told the OTB Board of Directors, "The City simply cannot take dollars away from schools and hospitals to pay for a gambling operation. We have no business subsidizing betting parlors at the expense of City taxpayers, particularly at a time when we're asking all agencies to cut their budgets." And what's more, the board agreed and approved the shutdown!

Documentary filmmaker Donny Moss has produced a movie about the carriage-horse trade in New York City called Blinders. It looks to be a revealing take on an iconic feature of the city, and includes original footage as well as documentation of well-publicized accidents and interviews with carriage owners, veterinarians, witnesses to accidents, and anti-carriage activists. Moss is engaged in the film festival application process right now, but has placed a trailer for the movie on...