Under-fire karozzin drivers would welcome more checks and enforcement but warned that banning horse-drawn carriages or limiting their hours would lead to a “massacre” of working horses.
“I have three horses, and each one costs a bare minimum of €200 a month to keep. If we weren’t doing this work, I’d only be able to keep one; the others would have to be put down,” said Christian Caruana, who has driven a cab for eight years.
“This is our livelihood. The horses are mostly retired racehorses that would otherwise have been put down, and they’re all certified as being fit enough for this work. But if there are 300 horses at the moment, there will be fewer than 150 left if the ones protesting get their way.”
Various drivers who spoke to the Times of Malta said banning rides during the hottest hours of the day – also the most lucrative for drivers – would have a crippling effect on operators and would also result in horses being abandoned.
This general view has been echoed in recent days by several horse sanctuaries who said there would be no room to take in such large numbers of animals.
Mr Caruana said operators were already subject to stringent regulations which had been beefed-up…
