Kensington Stables owner Walker Blankinship made a big stink about new regulations that would mandate he give his horses 5-weeks of vacation, as well as add bigger stalls and install a sprinkler system in his barn. He threatened to close his business, which offers $37 trail rides through Prospect Park, if he was made to follow the newly proposed rules. Now the Brooklyn Paper reports that the Board of Health has sided with him—they decided against changing the horse-boarding laws, thus allowing Kensington Stables to remain open, as is. more ›

The Kensington Stables owner, Walker Blankinship, is speaking out some more prior to finding out if his business will need to meet new regulations instituted by the Department of Health. The new rules may cost him too much money to keep horseback riding available in Prospect Park, and he recently told the NY Post, "If I have to go to box stalls, I have no intention of maintaining any horseback riding in Prospect Park. If I’m putting a two-foot-high pony in an eight-foot-high stall to appease animal rights activists, then I’m not wanted here. I’m going to leave.” Just like the new rules proposed for Central Park's carriage horses, other costly changes would include a sprinkler system and a 5-week vacation for horses. His fate will be sealed at a meeting in March, stay tuned... more ›

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. more ›