06/02/2026
Cartagena de las Indias, in Colombia, has chosen to put a definitive end to the use of horse-drawn carriages, replacing them with electric vehicles for tourist transport. A decision that openly acknowledges what animal protection organisations have been denouncing for years: the use of horses in modern urban traffic is fundamentally incompatible with their welfare.
The so-called caballos carreros will be placed for adoption with carefully selected families, based on strict technical and ethical criteria. Their new lives have become a symbol of a city striving to reconcile tourism, innovation and respect for living beings, turning a controversial practice of the past into a concrete path of change.
Moving beyond compromises and temporary solutions, the Colombian city has recognised that extreme heat, asphalt, noise and intense tourist flows turn what is often labelled as “tradition” into a form of structural exploitation. And it has chosen to stop.
The comparison with Italy is unavoidable.
In Italy, the issue of horse-drawn carriages resurfaces cyclically only after yet another critical incident: horses collapsing on the asphalt, injured animals, road accidents that endanger people as well.
Rome, Florence, Palermo, Naples: the cities change, but the pattern remains the same. Public outrage is followed by partial ordinances, seasonal restrictions, consultation tables. Never a definitive decision.
Only the Municipality of Verona has adopted a Municipal Regulation for the Protection of Animals that includes a ban on the public transport of people by means of horse-drawn carriages throughout the entire municipal territory.
In the other major Italian urban centers frequently mentioned in the public debate (Rome, Florence, Naples, Palermo, Pisa, Messina), there have been political initiatives, council discussions, or proposals for regulatory revisions, but no structured and currently enforceable ban.
The result is that, year after year, horses continue to be forced to work in environments that disregard their physical and ethological needs, while local authorities postpone any choice that might displease the lobbies that profit from animal exploitation.
For years, IHP has maintained that the problem is not how horses are used, but the very fact that they are used at all. There are no regulations capable of making animal traction acceptable in an urban context. Limiting working hours or suspending carriage services on particularly hot days does not eliminate chronic stress, exposure to traffic hazards, the impossibility for horses to move naturally or to escape situations of fear.
Over time, IHP has documented concrete cases in many Italian cities, submitting formal complaints to authorities, reports to municipalities and requests for intervention. At the same time, it has promoted petitions, institutional meetings and information campaigns addressed also to tourists, who are often unaware of the conditions in which these animals are forced to work.
The organisation has also offered to take in “retired” horses at its Recovery Centre and to support institutions in designing responsible adoption programmes based on the careful selection of suitable adopters. None of this has led to any real change.
The position remains unchanged: abolition, not the management of exploitation.
In Italy, appeals to tradition continue to be used as a justification, despite the fact that cities have profoundly changed and public awareness of animal welfare has significantly increased. Yet no tradition can be defended when it entails avoidable suffering for sentient beings.
The paradox is clear: local administrations implicitly acknowledge the problem, but limit themselves to cosmetic solutions that leave the system intact. Meanwhile, international examples show that a transition is both possible and workable, without necessarily dismantling the tourism offer.
At this point, the issue is no longer technical or cultural. It is political.
Alternatives exist: electric vehicles, the reconversion of activities, models that have already been successfully adopted in other cities. What is lacking is the willingness to assume responsibility for a clear decision, accepting the conflict that any genuine change inevitably entails.
According to IHP, every postponement carries a precise cost: more horses forced to work in conditions incompatible with their welfare, while the debate remains stuck between promises and half-measures.
Cartagena shows that stopping is possible. In Italy, instead, the discussion continues to revolve around how to make a practice that is now widely recognised as wrong merely “less problematic”.
And once again, the price is not paid by politics. It is paid by the horses.