It was a near-summer Wednesday afternoon in Central Park, and an 18-year-old visiting New York from India was doing what so many tourists in New York City want to do: taking a ride in an old-fashioned horse-drawn carriage.
He and three other passengers climbed into the red-and-white compartment. Mid-ride, the driver stepped away from the carriage to take a photo of the group, according to the carriage drivers’ union.
At that moment, the horse bolted. It tore up onto the sidewalk and bumped onto the grass, accelerating crazily, the driver racing behind. The horse rounded a corner, and a passenger fell out of the carriage.
After clipping another horse carriage, the out-of-control carriage toppled over, shattering into pieces.
The 18-year-old, identified by three law enforcement officials as Romanch Mahajan, sustained a head injury. Wednesday evening, he died at NewYork-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, those officials said. (All spoke anonymously to discuss an ongoing investigation.)
The accident, which happened around 2:45 p.m., was the latest in a very long series of mishaps involving carriage horses.
The drivers’ union said it never should have happened.
“It appears the driver was at least at arm’s length from his horse,” Alexander Kemp, a vice president of the union, Transport Workers Union Local 100, said in a statement. “This is unacceptable. A driver is not supposed to leave the carriage to take photos — ever. We support a full investigation.”
He said the horse, a 7-year-old named Sampson who appeared to be uninjured, had been working in the park for only six weeks. The driver’s name was not immediately released.
The accident immediately led to renewed calls from animal advocates, elected officials and the Central Park Conservancy, which runs the park, to ban carriages from the park.
“This is yet another serious and terrifying incident involving a carriage horse in Central Park, and it should make clear to everyone that delay is no longer defensible,” City Councilman Christopher Marte, who has introduced a bill to ban carriages at the end of next year, said in a statement.
Edita Birnkrant, the executive director of NYCLASS, which has waged a yearslong effort to end the carriage-horse trade, said that the accident was “the perfect example of why there is no amount of regulation or reform that will stop these horses from spooking and putting lives at risk, their own and the public.”
The park conservancy said that there had been eight “horse-related incidents” in or near the park since May 2025, including one last month where a horse hit another carriage and caused it to tip over and one in January where a horse ran into oncoming traffic and hit several cars. Last week, a carriage horse named Deniz died after eating Japanese yew, a plant that is toxic to horses, in the park.
There are more than 100 carriage horses in Manhattan, the union said. Supporters of the industry maintain that it is safe.
Early Wednesday evening, the carriage was still overturned on West Drive, its front wheels broken off its body.
Christina Hansen, a carriage driver and a spokeswoman for the drivers’ union, said that when she got to the scene around 3 p.m., she found Sampson still connected to the horse shafts. “He was a little worked up, but he was standing there quietly,” she said.
