Horse caretakers in Lampang Province are making no income due to the COVID-19 situation and the horses have no grass to feed on. The manager of JJ Park in the main city of Lampang along with the local rescue team presented 84 horse caretakers with aid packages and some funds on 15 April 2020. These horse caretakers are making no income because there are no tourists at this time. The families are having a hard time finding money for food and many have no money to buy grass for the horses. The horse carriage business in Lampang may come to a stop if the situation continues for a long time.
Lampang is one of the few tourist locations in the world where there are still horse carriages. Narong Chairungroung one of the horse caretakers revealed that there are about 200 horse caretakers in Lampang with over 700 family members affected from COVID-19. Narong has 11 horses and 2 horse carriages. Together with his wife, they have been working for over 20 years in the horse carriage services and normally make about 300-600 THB. The income is enough to send his children to school and monthly payments. As a villager, he tries to find food from different sources every day, but there is no money to buy grass which is about 200 THB per day for the 6 horses.
Thitirat Kittikam 37 years old, another horse caretaker reveals that he continued the business from his father. He started at 18, a total of 19 years working with horses. Kittkam no income from other businesses. The horses are getting thin as there is not enough grass every day to feed all of them. Sombat another horse caretaker stated that it has been 2 months since the horse carriages were ordered to stop working. Sithichai Jundaluang the vice-governor of Lampang has heard the voices of horse caretakers and the province is working with the Lampang Department of Livestock Development (DLP) who will be providing grass and food for the horses
FB Caption: Horse carriage drivers cannot work during the Covid-19 situation and the horses are getting thin.
Source: Khaosod
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