A carriage horse’s death in New York’s Central Park has renewed animal-rights activists’ concerns about the animals. 

Several protesters gathered near the park after a startled horse bolted, injured itself and died yesterday afternoon.

As one protester put it, “Horses shouldn’t be in traffic.”

A spokeswoman for the Horse & Carriage Association of New York called the episode “a freak accident.” She said it’s a blow to an industry that cares deeply about its animals.

She said the horse that died, a 13-year-old mare named Smoothie, had been a carriage horse for only a year. Witnesses said the horse might have been startled by a street performer