Animal rights group ENPA has called on Rome mayor Gianni Alemanno to put an end to one of the capital's tourist favourites - taking a romantic horse-driven buggy ride through the city's ancient streets.
According to ENPA President Carlo Rocchi, tourists fail to see the cruel treatment of horses stationed at Rome's famous monuments undergo, from being locked up in their communal stables ''sometimes for weeks'', to being ''cruelly sent to the butcher when they aren't needed any more''.
Animal rights campaigners have long held that coping with Rome's smog and traffic-choked streets is harmful for the animals' health.
Rocchi also claimed that drivers of the colourful 'botticelle' were defying city laws that prevent horses from working between 13.00 and 17.00 under the baking summer sun.
He appealed to Alemanno to transfer the buggy drivers' authorisation into licenses to drive taxis, ''putting an end to the ignoble exploitation of the horses'' and said that ENPA would guarantee board and lodging for the restful retirement of the 90 animals currently working in the capital.
But buggy drivers hit back at suggestions of animal cruelty.
''We have never taken horses to the butcher when they are no longer able to work and we look after them as if they were our own children,'' drivers' spokesman Giovanni Maiocco said.
''Often we go to visit the animals privately (at their stables), looking out for their welfare with money from our own pockets,'' he added.
''There are botticelle in other cities such as Florence and Sorrento, so there's no reason why they should be eliminated in Rome''.
Maiocco added that the drivers had to pay tax ''even for the hours in which we aren't working'' when the city council's afternoon block comes into effect.
He also rejected ENPA's suggestion that the drivers should switch their horses for taxis.
''This is a job we have chosen also out of the love we feel for the horses,'' he said.
Under a 2004 city council order, all horses in the capital are supposed to wear specially designed nappies to stop them dirtying the city's streets - but not all drivers abide by the rule.
