Joshua Reyna moves past Hard Rock Cafe downtown in his horse-drawn carriage.
“Snowman’s a full Clydesdale but he’s not fast, he’s just nice,” he said.
Snowman is Reyna’s horse, who he’s been partnered with for about a year. Snowman is one of the 40 to 50 horses Reyna has worked with during his time as a carriage operator.
Reyna works for HRH Carriage Company, one of the five permitted horse-drawn carriage companies in San Antonio. Each has permits for five carriages.
He spoke with TPR during a carriage ride in November 2024 to offer a first-hand look at what he and his colleagues offer their customers.
Reyna is one of 81 permitted horse-carriage operators in the city who may have to find new work sooner rather than later.
The San Antonio City Council appears ready to pick a timeline to phase out the nearly 160-year-old industry in a vote next month.
The conversation about phasing out horse-drawn carriages was renewed earlier this year after a 2022 council consideration request (CCR) proposed a possible end of the industry in San Antonio and a so-called “just transition” for the industry’s workers.
Council members have brought up various reasons to end the practice in San Antonio — concern over the horses’ welfare, the traffic congestion they contribute to, and arguments that they don’t fit with San Antonio’s transformation into a “modern” city.
A city survey with 50,000 responses, nearly 40,000 of which were from San Antonio residents, found that a slight majority favored getting rid of the industry.
The companies and operators argue that part of the reason they add to congestion is because the city has taken away the numerous locations where they used to be able to park, forcing carriages to pile up on one or two streets.
And the city’s current regulations for the industry prevent the horses from working on days above 95 degrees, require operators to give horses water breaks between each ride, and require a city-contracted veterinarian to examine them every six months.
That vet — Dr. Benjamin Espy, who has also served as the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo’s head of veterinary services for the last 20 years — has said the horses are perfectly healthy.
Council members have raised the concern that his perspective could be tainted by his financial incentive to keep his work examining the horses, but operators and company owners say he only gets paid $600 per year to examine all the companies’ horses.
District 2 Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, who co-wrote the 2022 policy proposal, is clear about his position on the horses.
“These horses do not belong downtown, no matter what way you slice it,” he said in an October city council meeting.
The companies have said they’ll take tighter regulations, or even accept that their time is over, if they can just get more time.
Stephanie Dickinson is the president of Yellow Rose & HRH Carriage. During a conversation at her ranch south of San Antonio where she keeps her 19 horses, she laid out her offer to the city.
“We asked for the SeaWorld compromise,” she said. “Like SeaWorld [does] with the orcas, they agreed that they wouldn’t bring any more animals in, but the ones that they have, they could live out their life, doing their job until it was time for them to retire or something happened to them.”
But the city council’s most recent conversation in October revolved around three options: One year, three years, or five years.
McKee-Rodriguez said he’s willing to compromise and allow the industry to continue for up to three years, but no longer.
“If there’s any room for improvement, it’s not going to be found in the duration of the transition,” he said. “It’s going to be found in the type of financial support and other types of support that we can provide.”
Others, like District 8 Councilmember Manny Pelaez, want the industry shut down immediately.
“I’m for prohibiting these horse carriages from operating downtown yesterday,” he said. “And to me, one year seems too much.”
Skylar Newman is a manager and operator for Yellow Rose, where she’s worked for eight years.
Standing in the company’s downtown holding pen for horses before they hit the streets, she said she’s lost faith in the city council over the last year.
“I’ve never been into politics or anything like that, but this has definitely brought me into it and broken my heart about the way things work in the city,” she said. “Truly, like one day you’re fine, and the next day you’re looking at you can’t be in the industry you love anymore.”
Newman said she’ll have to sell the house she bought last year because she doesn’t think she’ll be able to make as much money as she makes now in another job.
Newman’s coworker Haley Harlan thinks she’s going to have to move too — back to Boston.
“It makes me sad, and it makes me mad, because I’m 64,” Harlan said. “What else am I going to do? You know, there’s not a lot of companies out there that will hire a 64-year-old with physical issues and not a lot of stamina.”
The city has offered all of the operators connections to its Ready to Work workforce development program to help them transition away from horse-drawn carriages.
Fewer than half of the 44 operators the city spoke to were interested.
That might be because Ready to Work graduates have an average salary around $44,000, and nearly half of the operators the city surveyed make more than $70,000.
The city has also looked into what it would take to convert the businesses to electric carriages, but that plan is unpopular with the operators and Mayor Ron Nirenberg.
Harlan said she and her coworkers didn’t get into the business to drive around a carriage — they did it to be around horses.
She said that’s what customers pay for too.
“Kids don’t want to pet an engine,” Harlan said. “They want to pet the horse. And a lot of times, for a lot of kids, seeing a horse downtown is as close as they’re going to get to horses.”
Three-quarters of operators the city spoke to said they had no interest in driving electric carriages.
District 3 Councilmember and CCR co-author Phyllis Viagran said a short timeline would mean financial disaster for the horse carriage companies and their owners.
“What I know, because I was a small business owner that had to wind down her business, is that, one, if it happens in one to two years, you can basically guarantee there will be a bankruptcy proceeding,” Viagran said. “And the city should not be in the business of closing down small businesses.”
City staff have said the five companies each hold between $70,000 and $700,000 in debt.
Dickinson said she needs five years to get out debt-free.
But that won’t be enough for some of her colleagues.
“Oh no, they need a lot longer,” she said. “A lot, lot longer.”
Other council advocates for a five-year plan have said the dozens of horse carriage operators like Reyna, Newman, and Harlan need time to find new employment and make their own arrangements.
District 5 Councilmember Teri Castillo is one of those advocates.
“I believe anything less than five years is a disservice and will create further distrust with San Antonio and Texan residents, because ultimately, what we’re talking about here is killing jobs and an industry in a time where we know there’s already economic insecurity,” she said.
She added that if the companies do go bankrupt, their horses may be seized as assets, putting them at far more risk than they are on San Antonio’s streets.
Reyna said it would be a major loss to San Antonio for its historic horse-drawn carriage industry to end.
“I don’t necessarily agree with it, but they can attempt it,” he said of the city council’s upcoming decision. “It’s their right. I just think that, you know, this is something that’s been part of downtown San Antonio for a very long time.”
The only question left is how long the carriage companies and operators will have to figure out what’s next.
