Post mishap, horse rides grind to halt at Cooperage Garden

Mumbai: While the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) claims it has stopped issuing license to horse riders a couple of years ago in compliance with high court orders, horse rides at Cooperage Garden seem to be continuing illegally. To make matters worse, six-year-old Janhavi Sharma died after falling from a horse at the garden, also known as Rajiv Gandhi Garden, located near Mantralaya, Sunday evening. The Colaba police has registered a case against the horse rider, Sohan Jaiswal (30), and arrested him.

Following the mishap, horse riding activities at Cooperage Garden came to a halt on Monday. There were some rides from 4 to 8.30 pm at the garden but the space used for pony riding was cordoned off by the police.

Sources at the garden said that there were about 22 horse riders operating there, of which, 12 had valid licenses and charged around `20 per ride.

Kailash Jaiswal, a horse rider, said, “I have been doing horse riding here for the past 18 years but have never seen a death... But the court ruling was for horse carriages and not for pony riding. We are trying to get our licenses renewed,” he said.

Additional municipal commissioner Vijay Singhal said, “Earlier, the deputy superintendent of gardens used to issue license to these horses to roam around there.” However, in 2015, after the high court directed BMC to stop horse carts, licenses were not renewed.”