During the 2013 election campaign he had promised they would be banned, but instead the Mayor of New York City has proposed building them a new palace within an already overcrowded Central Park. In addition to taking care of the homeless and poor New Yorkers, Mayor Bill de Blasio courted rich donors with an interest in animal rights by vowing to get rid of the horse-drawn carriages in the city. Such relics of the past were inappropriate in a modern city, he said, and (anyway) horses pulling carriages in the middle of traffic is torture. At first glimpse, de Blasio’s proposal sounded like a nice liberal New York kind of gesture. That view began to sour for many residents after it was revealed that New York’s horses not only eat well , but are also unionized and enjoy 5 weeks of annual vacation — more than many New Yorkers. But as you can read in this article describing these horse politics published by the New York Times , de Blasio is trapped between some big donors who helped elect him and pragmatic New Yorkers. His plan for the horses: Instead of retirement, a $25 million horse mansion, seems to have made no one happy.