A draft horse is normally a plodding, placid animal and rarely the focus of controversy like some high-priced thoroughbred.
Over the past year, however, the draft horses who pull most of the carriages in downtown Denver have been dragged into a showdown on the 16th Street Mall.
On one side are the approximately 10 carriage companies and their horses, and on the other is Deborah Dilley, commander of the mounted police and the district patrolling downtown, who decided the city’s permitting requirements weren’t rigorous.
“I don’t think it’s necessary for me to wait for a horse to run over someone before I take action,” Dilley said.
Dilley proposed recertifying all 30 carriages, all the drivers and all the horses – adding up to about 100 road tests.
The controversy generated letters from the carriage owners to Gov. Bill Ritter, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and Denver City Council members.
The city’s independent mediator – Steve Charbonneau – was even called in to help ease tensions between the carriage firms and the mounted police.
“I just kind of got them to sit down together and talk,” Charbonneau said, adding this was the first carriage controversy he has faced.
“I haven’t done carriages before, so in that respect it was unique,” he said.
This month, a committee of the Denver City Council will consider a compromise proposal aimed at addressing the concerns of both sides.
Under that plan, all carriage firms will have to certify all their horses and drivers and have them tested by the police mounted patrol. The carriage firms, however, succeeded in modifying the test.
An earlier version featured M-80s exploding near the horse and the firing of .357-caliber revolvers nearby. The carriage operators said that was dangerous.
Now, a wooden drum will be rolled 30 feet away to test if a horse spooks easily. A starter pistol also will be fired at least 50 feet away, and other milder reflex tests will occur.
“When they told us they were going to test, of course we all got up in arms and scared,” said Marie Ray, owner of Irish Rose Carriages. “If you take a horse and put it through something like that, he may or may not come through with psychological damage.”
Under the current system, a carriage firm could qualify all its horses and drivers for carriage rides by having one horse and one driver pass a reflex test. That test essentially acted as blanket approval.
“It would be like a family of 10, and then the dad takes a driving test and then everyone drives on Dad’s driver’s license,” Dilley said.
Dilley proposed not only testing all the horses running downtown and all the drivers but requiring additional tests any time a new horse or driver was added to a firm.
The proposal made the carriage-company owners, who remembered the arduous test when they first got permitted, irate. They said a horse slipped on ice in one test.
They also worried about the impact of running numerous horses and carriage drivers out to the Littleton stables where the mounted patrol proposed doing the testing.
Ray recalled how her horse got so spooked by the smoke from the M-80s when the city tested her in 1990 that the animal balked when she got downtown and saw steam coming out of a vent.
“She did a complete 360-degree circle because she was scared of the steam,” Ray said. “It took three months to convince her everything was OK.”
Dilley said she met with the owners of the carriage firms operating downtown about five times over the past year.
Last week, the carriage drivers asked for a mediator to help ease remaining differences.
If the City Council takes prompt action, the 100 or so tests that will have to be conducted may start as soon as October.
The carriage operators say they don’t see what all the fuss is about since there haven’t been any serious incidents with their horses downtown.
They also argue that other cities don’t require physical testing. In Philadelphia, carriage firms undergo a written test that primarily checks knowledge of that city’s storied history, Denver operators say.
Dilley said she wants to protect the public.
“In New York City, there have been huge issues,” she said. “There, carriage horses have run into cars and have run over people.”
Some carriage firms still are balking even at the watered-down provisions.
Bob Heine, who goes by Cowboy Bob, said he plans to show up at the council meeting with a harness and challenge the mounted patrol to prove they know how to harness a horse.
Meanwhile, Dolly, the first mare to do carriage rides on the 16th Street Mall, carries on as she’s done since 1990.
“She runs around the mall like she owns it,” Ray said of the mare. “She puts her ears back when she sees a horse that she doesn’t think should be on the mall.”
Staff writer Christopher N. Osher can be reached at 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com.
