Editor’s note: A load of horseshit

One major factor has been missing from the debate over banning horse carriages in New York City.

And that’s a load of horseshit.

Wide swaths of Central Park smell like crap because horse excrement is smeared into the ground. The most iconic park in the world looks the part, but it smells like the paddocks at Aqueduct.

Cycle on the loop south of 72nd Street and you may as well be mountain biking on tracks of dung. A jog on the road becomes a hike on hills of waste.

I may be slightly exaggerating, but there’s historical precedent. Or at least, an urban myth that the piles of horse poop in a pre-automobile London were a serious obstacle to development. Cars came along, and the manure lessened – everywhere except Central Park, apparently, a remnant of our stinkier past.

Political consultant Ken Frydman recalled when he was first hired to advocate for the carriage drivers a decade ago. “I said to them at the very first meeting: Optically, the sight of horse excrement in the park is a bad image. Bad for branding.”

A driver protested, Frydman said. “We clean up 90% of it, mate!”

But even a little manure is still too much manure. An investigation last year by the venerated West Side Rag found “14 clear cut examples of horse poop” on the street, after just one quick stroll.

Horse carriage drivers once fought the 1989 law requiring horse diapers. And they’re fighting the bill the New York City Council passed last week that would ban horse carriage rides by the summer of 2028. I get it. It’s hard to lose a job, and to lose a 163-year-old tradition. But it’ll be a breath of fresh air to lose their shit.