A horse was reportedly hit by a taxi driver in midtown at around 10 a.m. this morning, though police say they have not been able to locate either the horse or the cabdriver. No injuries have been reported.
"I noticed there was one horse standing in the middle of the street, and then I saw there was another horse wedged under the taxi," said Thomas Beckner, who arrived in the aftermath of the collision. "Its body was wedged between the two tires underneath the driver's side door."
Beckner said that after the two men lifted the horse out from under the car, the animal was able to walk on its own to the sidewalk at 8th Avenue between 55th and 56th Street. "It looked pretty beat up, so when they threw the saddle back on and I was like, 'Oh my god, this is f-cked up.'"
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A video taken by Beckner shows two men, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers, examining the horse's hooves on the collision. According to Beckner, its back left leg seemed to be injured. A photo provided by the witness appears to show a dent on the driver's side door of the cab.
A spokesman for the NYPD said that officers from a nearby precinct arrived on the scene some time before noon, but could not find any traces of the collision. "It's very possible that this horse might have been struck and the horse operator left the area," the spokesman told Gothamist.
Beckner says that he did not see a carriage near the two horses, but speculates that they were heading to Columbus Circle. In 2012, a carriage horse was struck by a driver near Columbus Circle, intensifying calls to ban the practice in NYC.
Representatives from Animal Care & Control and the Taxi and Limousine Commission did not immediately respond to requests for comment. We will update when we find out more.
