A carriage horse tripped over a bike lane curb and fell near the intersection of Menzies Street and Superior Street after it got spooked at a hitching rail three blocks away on Friday night.
Owner of Tally-Ho Carriage Tours Donna Friedlander said that the horse’s bridle got caught and dislodged from the horse’s face while getting clipped on the rail after a tour around 8 p.m.
The startled Percheron draft horse went running down Menzies Street until he tripped over a protected bike lane curb.
The driver was thrown from the carriage, which got stuck halfway in the bike lane. She suffered a small cut on her head and was taken to hospital as a precaution that night, Friedlander said, but added that the driver was fine and in good spirits by Saturday.
“My team, they did everything totally right in handling that situation for both the driver and the horse,” she said.
Friendlander thanked the emergency response teams that helped.
Victoria Fire Department Battalion Chief John Kirkendale said that firefighters, B.C. Ambulance and Victoria police were all on scene by 7:50 p.m. and that they directed traffic away from the site for about an hour until the horse was seen by a vet and transported away by trailer.
“[The incident] was minor in nature, which was good, and the horse was able to get up on its own,” he said, adding that the horse had only suffered a minor cut above a hoof.
“He stayed down like he should’ve until he was unharnessed,” Friedlander said, adding that the horse — named Jinx — will be taking a few days off in a field in Central Saanich before returning to work. “We’ve got quite a good training process for our horses. They don’t go into Victoria until we know they’re ready for that sort of thing.”
Jinx has been a carriage horse for five or six years, she said.
Carriage drivers had previously used painted bike lanes to stay away from vehicle traffic.
Friedlander said that the new hard-curbed lanes are a tripping hazard and has raised the concern to the city.
“Now that they’re putting in hard-curbed bike lanes, the horses can’t get out of the way of traffic easily,” she said.
Michigan Street resident Lavinia Rojas said that she slows down whenever she’s driving on James Bay streets — which are usually filled with on-street car parking — whenever she sees a carriage horse tour.
“I am always worried about the horses getting spooked,” she said.
She said that a male driver sped around her and a horse-drawn carriage filled with tourists while she was driving north of Michigan street on Friday.
“I was shocked,” she said. “I don’t know how he didn’t hit the horse, it was so close. He almost hit me.”
Rojas said that it’s good that protected bike lanes are being put in as safety measures.
When horses, bikes, and cars mix, “it makes the situation very difficult for everybody,” she said.
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