AR-News: (NYC) - puff piece on carriage horses

[Elizabeth Forel]

The New York Times
"The City" section
Sunday, May 30, 2004

Photo caption: Smarty who? For Romeo, the slower the better.

Far From the Cheers at Belmont, a Gentle Survivor Plies His Trade

It rained on Wednesday, so Romeo, a speckled gray horse who pulls
carriages in Central Park, had the day off. He lounged around his
sawdust-lined stall on West 37th Street, eating hay and accepting pats on
the neck from Cornelius Patrick Byrne, his owner at Central Park
Carriages.

When the weather cleared, though, it would be back to the regular
routine: 9;30 to 5:30, five days a week. A working-class schedule for a
working-class horse.

If the thoroughbreds racing in the Belmont Stakes on Saturday are
high-performance Mike Piazzas, with protein shakes and a personal
masseurs, the carriage horses in the park are the workaday sluggers from
the company softball team, although Romeo, for one, had a brief glimpse
of the other side: He spent four years in harness races, and did well.

Then, seven or eight years ago, Mr. Byrne bought him for the carriage
business, where patience is prized over aggression and the idea is to
move slowly, not quickly. Romeo, now 15 years old, seems to have the
perfect personality for such a gig.

"He's gentle and he's nice," Mr. Byrne said, gently rubbing Romeo's nose.
"He's a good horse for the common man."

Mr. Byrne works hard to keep his horses relaxed and healthy, feeding them
supplements for their joints and hooves and regularly touching them and
talking to them. "They aren't this way all the time when they get here,"
he said of their friendliness. "They come to be this way."

A second-generation carriage owner who has worked in the 96-year-old
stables since 1980, Mr. Byrne has 17 horses, several of them former
harness-racers. He buys them at auction, keeping an eye out for the
larger specimens, which he regards as natural pullers and crowd-pleasers.
There are also some horses bred for work, among them Francis, who has
been at the stables for 16 years. Francis weighs in at 1,500 pounds and
wears a size 5 shoe, compared with the size 1 that a racehorse might
wear.

Pulling the carriages isn't a flashy life, but it is steady, as are the
horses. "Racehorses, they bite at you, they're always snorting and stuff
like that," Mr. Byrne said. "The racehorses, they want them like lions,
as excited as possible. We're trying to make them as calm as possible."

A work horse named Riley ambled over, poking his nose in Mr. Byrne's
direction. "Look at him coming around," Mr. Byrne. said. "You think a
racehorse would do that?"

~Jake Mooney

Letters to the editor 
thecity at nytimes.com

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