Five days after an unfurlinไg umbrella spooked him into bolting across Central Park West with a bu🐽ggy full of terrified Texans, Arthur the skittish carriage horse has “retired” to the country — where he’s still kicking up a cloud of controversy.
Arthur, 10, has now become the poster horse for both the carriage industry, which p൩oints to him as a shining example of humane treatment, and animal rights activists, who fear he will be turned into gꦍlue, or eaten.
“RALLY TO SAVE ARTHUR FROM SLAUGHT🍰ER” a group of vegans and animal rights activists posted on Facebook in advance💖 of a Thursday protest at Central Park’s southeast corner.
But at the very same time that activists for PETA, the anti-carriage group NYCLASS and other organizations gathered for the afternoon “emergency” rally, Arthur was on the move to his new home.
Horse advocates had been turning up, uninvited, and some with their own trailers, for half a week at the 38th Street carriage horse stables, hoping to “rescue” Arthur, said industry spokeswoman Christine Hansen.
But with the activists otherwi♊se occupied, volunteers from Blue Star Equiculture farm took the opportunity to whisk the massive white Percheron gelding out of the stables and into a t✃railer bound for its Palmer, Massachusetts, carriage horse sanctuary.
“He needs a break,” says Blue Star’s executive director, Pamela Rickenbach.
Making the trip with him to Blue Star was fellow N🌳YC retiree Prince, anoth🔴er white Percheron some 10 years his senior.
“They’re like inseparable,” Rickenbach said Friday, the two retirees’ first full day in their new home.
The older Prince has been following youngster Arthur around all day, sheඣ said.
“I think Prince is deferring to him,” she said. “It’s really cute.
“Prince is now Arthur’s new best bud,” agrees Colm McKeever, Arthur’s former owner and driver.
McKeever, 47, has owned and driven carriage horses in the city since he was 17, but in the month he owned Arthur, the giant “big boy”💞 stole ๊his heart, he said.
“Beautiful, beautiful animal,” he said.
“He w🍌ould lift his head up and kiss you on the side🧸 of the face to ask for a carrot.”
McKeever bought Arthur in early January for $4,000 from an Amish farmer; the horse’s previous career was pulling tourist carriages in Cleve൩land, Ohio, he said, “so he was alrea🥀dy a city slicker.”
Arthur became startled and bolted on Sunday after a man in💮 the park began opening and closing an umbrella to shake the rain off it, McKeever said.
He was tossed clear out of the c🌸arriage, winding up💫 on the pavement with an assortment of bruises.
“We’re all alright, thanks be to God꧙,” McKeever said of himself, Arthur, and a trio of female 🀅tourists from Texas.
McKeever has donated Arthur for free to Blue Star, where, according to Rickenbach and Hansen, he’ll live out his life relaxing and doing recreationaওl pulling for visitors.
He’ll only be adopted out if the perfect home comes along, Hanse♔n saidꦚ.
“He is not going to be slaughtered. He will not 𒉰be eaten,” she said, sounding exasperatജed.
“He will not be turned into glue.”
But Edi❀ta Birnkrant, executive director of NYCLASS, says her group fears Arthur could still be put back to work pulling tourists through cities, or even slaughtered.
“After what he’s been through, he deserves a life of rest and care,” she said. The group and others are still hoping that Arthur can live out his life in a sanctuary that they themselves have approved, including Crawford Farms in Syracuse or Tamerlaine Sanctuary in Montague, NJ.
Many private horse lovers have also come forward to adopt Arthur, she said, including comedian Whitney Cummings, who starred in the NBC sitcom “Whitney” and was co-creator of the CBS sitcom “2 Broke Girls.”
“Arthur deserves a permanent place to live where he’ll be safe and cared for, and where there’s no chance he’ll be sold back into the carriage industry or to a slaughterhouse,” she said in a statement Friday.
“I would love to provide him with this kind of home.”
But while the pro- and anti-carriage contingents continue battling over whether horses sh𒐪ould be working the city’s streets to begin with, both sides agree on one thing:
Arthur’s days as a ci꧑ty carriage horse are rightly over.
“That’s just an obviouꦫs liability issue,” Hansen said.