One of the worlds most renown horseman that has ACCEPTED the offer of the NYC carriage folks to meet their horses and help speak on their behalf. Thank you Chief Arvol Looking Horse!

Press release:

CHIEF ARVOL LOOKING HORSE TO VISIT NEW YORK CITY CARRIAGE HORSES

Spiritual Leader of the Great Sioux Nation Will Tour Stables, Speak On Behalf of Horse-Human Bond

NEW YORK, NY – Chief Arvol Looking Horse is in New York City to deliver a message of global importance, but is taking time on Sunday, November 17, to address a local issue that is a microcosm for the crisis facing humanity and its relationship with Mother Earth – the threatened ban of the New York City carriage horses.

Chief Arvol Looking Horse is addressing the United Nations on Thursday, November 14, on behalf of a council of elders representing the spiritual peoples of North and South America. The council is very concerned about the Fukishima crisis. He will then visit the carriage horses at Clinton Park Stables in Hell’s Kitchen on Sunday, November 17 at 3 pm.

Chief Arvol Looking Horse is the 19th generation keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Bundle of the Great Sioux Nation. He is a lifelong horseman who keeps a herd of 75 horses at his home in South Dakota.

“The people who speak so loudly against this way of life have forgotten how to be with horses, how we’ve been with them for generations,” says Looking Horse. “The Horse is a great gift to my people, the Lakota. The horse was also a great gift to the western world. They built New York. We are all horse people.”

Pamela Rickenbach, a long-time friend of Arvol Looking Horse and fellow environmentalist, facilitated his upcoming visit to Clinton Park Stables. Rickenbach is the Executive Director of Blue Star Equiculture, a non-profit draft horse sanctuary in Palmer, MA, helping horses, humans and Mother Earth. Blue Star Equiculture is the official retirement venue for the New York City carriage horses.

“We have been watching the political threat to the Central Park carriage horses closely,” says Rickenbach. “Everything we do – our programs teaching draft horse husbandry to future organic farmers, our carriage horse retirement program, our working horse advocacy – all of it is there to promote the ancient partnership we have with horses. It’s distressing that there is so much misinformation out there about what these horses are capable of, and how much we as humans need them and how much they need us.”

The anti-horse group, NYCLASS, backed by radical animal rights groups such as PETA and the HSUS, has pushed politicians to support a bill that would replace carriage horses with electric reproduction vintage cars. NYCLASS claims that the electric cars are “eco-friendly.”

“How incredibly disingenuous,” says Rickenbach. “The ecological devastation going on for the mining of rare earth elements overseas for batteries to power cars is frightening. I guess if it’s not here in our country, the radicals who want to replace life with a machine don’t see the damage going on. As we like to say at Blue Star, going green takes real horsepower!”

NYCLASS also has strong ties to real estate developers. The land that all four carriage horse stables occupy on the far west side is coveted by developers looking to build more high-rise luxury buildings.

Carriage driver Christina Hansen says it’s an honor to have Looking Horse visit the stables and address the carriage horse issue. “Arvol’s message to the UN warns us about the harm that ignorance, greed and bad decisions are doing to the soul of Mother Earth. I think the same can be said about the soul of New York City if the carriage horses are driven out.”

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio has declined every invitation from the carriage industry to visit their stables. Mr. De Blasio has vowed to end the carriage horse industry when he takes office.

Arvol Looking Horse says, “We sever our ties with the natural world at our own peril.”

For more about Blue Star Equiculture’s mission to help horses, humans and Mother Earth, visit www.equiculture.org.

For more information about Chief Arvol Looking Horse, visit www.wolakota.org. Read the full text of Arvol Looking Horse’s address to the United Nations here: http://ravenredbone.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/council_fukushima_statement_oct_20131.pdf

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CONTACT:

Pamela Rickenbach
Executive Director
Blue Star Equiculture
(413) 289-9787
pamela@equiculture.org

Christina Hansen
Communications Liaison
NYC Carriage Industry
(267) 909-5844
nyccarriages@gmail.com