HORSE & CART SPOTTING NEWS
As the days go by, and you continue your regular scroll through the snapshots of movement in Leonardo Village for various reasons. You get quite a lot of the snapshots reflecting horse and cart activity which then remind you of the voice you heard and the clip-clop of the horse’s hoofs on the tar road.
Residents from the Village and Bothasig at large, do seem to have the same opinion on the practical use of horse and cart in the urban area. There are concerns about the animal welfare i.e. well-being of the horses in use as they sometimes are on the road in abnormal heatwave conditions and seems to be under fed as you can see their ribs etc. Albeit that the horse-drawn carts are used for transportation of goods, people, and even scrap metal, the residents do find their presence close to missing items scenes suspicious and perhaps the main reason of not wanting them in the area.
The local Cart Horse Protection Association also indicate that they are seeing an influx of new, young drivers with very little regard for the rules. With the number of registered working horses being limited, these youngsters are starting to work with non-registered horses. The environment in which the youngsters live tend to leave very little room for the consideration of the welfare of anything or anyone beyond their own immediate survival.
From time to time a horse and cart draws attention in the village, and we make a recording of the time it spends in the village and place it on a dedicated playlist on Youtube that you can view by clicking below:
In some instances, the horse and cart driver get under the skin of village residents for example here they noticed excessive beating of non-responsive horse passing through the village:
Under the City of Cape Town’s by-laws, animal-drawn vehicles do in fact have right of way i.e. road users alongside horse and carts need to be patient when you see a horse and cart on the road. Keep in mind that they can stop at any time in front of you or not be able to stop as fast as your car can. Horses are also flight animals and can move sideways without any notice and land up in front of your car. Also don’t hoot at horses or make any loud noises near them, else you might just see a cart horse jolting.
Those residents who witnessed a cart horse jolting have a very changed and convinced outlook after such an event. Afterwards they strongly feel that the use of horses in modern build up residential areas should no longer be allowed. Despite it being made out as something historic and traditional.
This short dash cam clip reflects an incident in Leonardo Village itself:
Recently a horse jolting incident were also reported in Batavia Street, Bothasig with some images and details below of where the buggy got wrecked:
