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Thirty months after whipping his fallen carriage horse Ryder in New York, a 56-year-old horse carriage driver faces a criminal trial and possible jail time. The trial is scheduled for Monday.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n It will be on Assistant District Attorney Sophie Robart to convince 12 New York jurors that the defendant\u00a0overdrove<\/a>\u00a0his dark brown Standardbred and failed to provide proper nourishment.<\/p>\n Central Park temperature hovered around 31\u00b0C on August 10, 2022. The humidity, lack of shade and black asphalt created a heat index of around 34\u00b0C.\u00a0Ryder had been pulling a 450-kilogram carriage filled with tourists since 9:30 AM.\u00a0<\/p>\n By 5:00 PM, Ryder could not drag the carriage three more kilometers to the West Side Livery Stable. He collapsed in New York\u2019s rush hour traffic.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n This video of the defendant screaming, \u201cGet up, get up!\u201d and hitting and smacking the horse as he lay on hot, black asphalt went viral.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Although the defendant told arriving police that Ryder was 13 years old, he was twice that age.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAll Standardbreds have a freeze brand on the right side of their neck,\u201d said Standardbred owner and trainer Michael Petrelli. \u201cTheir true identity can be obtained in seconds.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Typing Ryder\u2019s brand (R5932) into\u00a0USTrotting.com<\/a>\u00a0reveals that the elderly NYC carriage horse had once raced as Hi Ho Cheery O. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Petrelli believes Ryder spent the next 20 years pulling an Amish tractor before finally being sold to McKeever as a \u201cjunk horse\u201d at 26.\u00a0That\u2019s 80 to 90 in human years.<\/p>\n New York regulations do not allow horses to pull a carriage\u00a0past the age of 26<\/a>.<\/p>\n The defendant drove horses for over 20 years.\u00a0\u201cHe knew (Ryder) was too old for the carriage industry when he purchased the animal in May,\u201d the defendant\u2019s former friend, Ken Frydman, told the\u00a0New York Post<\/a>. \u201cHe bought the horse on the cheap and figured he\u2019d squeeze what he could out of\u00a0it.\u201d<\/p>\n Such out-of-court statements are generally forbidden in court as \u201chearsay.\u201d \u00a0The jury will not hear them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The jury will also not hear that the defendant\u2019s brother was fined $1,000 for falsifying Ryder\u2019s age on NYC\u2019s carriage horse license application.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The defense attorney will object to the fine being mentioned or knowledge of Ryder\u2019s actual age being blamed on the defendant.<\/p>\n Another thing the jury won\u2019t hear is about a lawsuit former carriage horse driver Aylan Kaya initiated against the defendant.\u00a0According to Mr. Kaya\u2019s\u00a0complaint<\/a>, \u201cMcKeever was illegally driving under Mr. Kaya\u2019s license plate\u201d when Ryder collapsed.<\/p>\n Might the jury find the defendant guilty anyway?\u00a0Edita Birnkrant of\u00a0NYCLASS<\/a>\u00a0hopes so.\u00a0She\u2019s sought a ban on horse-drawn carriages since 2008.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cA guilty verdict would validate what NYCLASS and many others have said since (ASPCA<\/a>\u00a0Founder) Henry Bergh: these horses are victims of criminal abuse.\u00a0 Ryder is just one example.\u00a0 There are 200 Ryders. \u00a0A guilty verdict would convict not just one owner but the whole industry.\u201d<\/p>\n The Animal Reader is an independent animal news platform based in the Netherlands. We share daily updates about animal-related issues.<\/em><\/p>\n Ryder was older than claimed<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Key evidence the jury won\u2019t hear<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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