Before accepting to have his workday reported in this feature, coachman Joe Galea proposed the condition that his grievances are listened to and fairly reported.
“You see, farmers would feed all of the animals in a farm, all except mice. So to survive, mice will have to steal. We are like those mice here.”
Apparently, these mice are early risers too. Galea’s day started at 4 am last Thursday, at the stables just beneath his home in Msida. Sipping coffee from a tea-glass, true to his word, he greets me with his first complaint:
“We have many problems in this trade, but the worst of all is that we don’t have enough shelters in place for the horses to rest under. This is why I wake up at 3am. I don’t have to, since passing trade for this kind of work starts at 10:30am, so for a good five hours, there’s nothing to do on the cabstand. But I have to be there among the first six coaches to be able to find a place under the shelter. If I don’t, and place the horse in the area but not under the shelter, I get fined €47.”
There are about 125 licensed carriages, 62 of them operate in Valletta within 32 places at licensed cabstands, out of which only 12 are sheltered. When coachmen find no place on the stand, they are required to take their horse-drawn carriages next to the building housing the Ministry of Justice, in an area they call “the waiting list”.
Galea owns four horses, but only uses two at a time at most – one assigned to his coach, and the other assigned to his helper’s, who goes by the name of Victor “Chossy” Pace. This system of rotation is required to let horses rest.
On the day, it turns out that Galea was not setting up on the cabstand as he was busy with his other job, that of supplying outlets with local pork.
While providing details on what the job entails, Galea was busy feeding the horses, cleaning them and setting up the coach, all until Chossy turned up at 5am.
“Horses do not work very hard as such. We’re lucky if we get to do two or three rides a day. But horses do suffer, not because of work, but because of the scorching sun,” he pointed out.
“Besides, the busiest cabstand at the Main Guard in Valletta, has a shelter accommodating six horses, but this is way too small, even for one horse. Horses staying lengthwise under these shelters will still be exposed to the sun, be it from the front or from the back.”
Apparently, the old, larger shelter at the Main Guard was taken down to the less busy cabstand opposite the Malta Experience.
“When shelters and cabstands are taken off, they do so without notice. I don’t think this makes sense at all. Let’s say I need my son’s bedroom for my own use. I guess I have a right for it since I pay the bills, but then I have to offer him an alternative – I cannot just let him sleep on the street. In the same way, I feel government had a right to take away stands to include pedestrian areas and café tables, but then we must be consulted and offered an alternative,” he said.
“The way things are going, authorities are ignoring us and this is giving leeway to abuse. There is no organisation, and no regulation, so everyone creates their own rules and charges different rates for rides. But if we are to be properly regulated, we should have fixed rates of charge, clearly written on signage at cabstands. This way, nobody would have the right to overcharge thus giving us a bad name, or undercharge thus taking away work from others.”
Although there is neither an association for coachmen, nor proper organisation, licenses issued for horse cabbies are regulated by government, and most are inherited across generations.
“My grandparents were coachmen,” Galea said. “In those days, the service was offered as a means of transport. With no cars around at the time, that is how it had to work. You would either hire a cab whenever you needed to move out of the village or if you’re well off, hire a cabby full-time. My mother used to say that my grandfather was stationed with a professor.”
Which explains why most coachmen nowadays hail from or have their roots in Birkirkara or Msida, because the towns’ centrality made it ideal for the job back then.
“We haven’t heard anything about liberalisation,” he added, “and we don’t form part of any association. Neither do we have our own association or representation, although we were represented by the GWU until a few months ago.”
And what happened?
“Well, there were a few people who weren’t paying membership, and some others who were, did not like it. They thought they shouldn’t be paying membership to defend people who couldn’t give a toss. So everyone pulled out, just like sheep. We clearly need to unite, and in some way or another, get the authorities on board so everything gets organised. I am personally prepared to pay extra on my annual permit, as long as the government employs a cleaner to pick up horse droppings. This way, if one of my colleagues does not clean his horse’s mess, I don’t get the blame.
“Well-trained horses do not defecate while they’re out. But then of course, horses are animals at the end of the day. We are equipped with landing nets that are placed behind a horse’s bottom when they are about to litter. Those rare times when I’d be busy explaining to passengers about the different sites, and one of my horses litters without my noticing immediately, all it takes is for me to call up a colleague to clean it up for me. If the same happens to them, I clean it up for them. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. This is how it has to work in this business.”

Sunrise at the Main Guard
It’s 5am now, and Chossy arrives at the stables to pick up the horse and cab. By 5:30am, his coach is standing at the Main Guard in Valletta, and there’s already two other horses waiting under the shelter.
The system adopted is for customers to be referred to the first cab arrived, and then to the next in line. Once you get a ride, you lose your turn and re-start queuing from the back, so it is more than likely that you are asked to take the cab to “the waiting list”.
In the event where prospective customers do not reach an agreement with the first in line, they can move on to negotiate with the next in line and so on until an end price is agreed. Rates normally vary between €25 and €40, although rides for €20 have also been accepted in hard times, and legend has it that a shameless coachmen once charged a group of four tourists the flagrant amount of €200 for a 30-minute ride, the expected duration for a standard tour.

Coachmen bicker on pricing issue
Chossy, along with Galea’s stallion Obregado Beejay, is first in line at 10:30am, but because he was busy arguing about the lack of standards in this industry, he lost his turn twice and only got to make his first (and only) trip for the day at 12:15pm.
“Most of us work part-time here, as many do not see this as a reliable full-time job,” Pace commented while waiting for a ride to come his way.
A younger, quick-tempered Kenneth Gafa butts in. “You cannot really survive doing this job. Anyone in uniform works against our interests.”
“I got 20 fines so far this year, work it out, multiply that by €47 per fine,” another eavesdropper commented.
“We have our bad sides too of course,” Gafa continued. “Some of us don’t clean the horse’s droppings and are undisciplined. We have a bad name because of this, just like bus drivers do. But the same way bus drivers aren’t all bad, so it is in our case. Our season keeps shortening. Our peak season now lasts three or four months maximum, so it’s never been meant as a steady job. And also, costs keep going up. You need at least three horses to operate nowadays, not to mention rent and utilities of your stables and all the maintenance involved on the carriage, which may turn out to be very expensive. This is a dying profession. The situation is so bad here that I am sure, as I have often told my colleagues, that we have a good case to present to the European Courts of Justice. But we seriously need to get organised first, and set fixed rules and fixed prices.”
While Gafa orated, a small group of onlookers drew closer to listen to what he had to say. But at his last comment, one of the coachmen was angered.
“Forget this idea of prices,” the bystander said, pointing at the notebook. “Delete it, don’t write it,” he ordered.
This called for another coachman’s intervention. “But it’s true some of us have no sense of discipline,” he said. “One went as far as to leave a bag of horse dung by Austin Gatt’s front door. I mean, at his house. I don’t think this kind of attitude helps in making us gain his respect. We need to get organised, and yes if need be, we should all charge the same prices.”
But among coachmen, there seems to be factions that strongly oppose this proposal. At this point, one who seemed the youngest of them all, turned on to others agreeing to the fixed-pricing idea and gave them a good bollocking.
“Stop talking rubbish,” he barked. “We should be free to charge any rate as we please. It is up to the customer to determine whether the rate proposed is fair, not up to the government.”
In an attempt to calm the situation down, Gafa said: “You see, there’s disagreement here. Do you know of a sector without a committee? Cabs have increased and work has dwindled. We cannot talk about prices before a committee is set to discuss the issue properly. We cannot discuss such serious matters over a cigarette standing on a pavement.”
“So why not go back to the union?” Chossy asked. “They did help us after all. This is why we are still here. Had it not been for them, this cabstand would have already been replaced by café tables.”
At this point, the young one became even more irritated. “And while you blab, you’re first in line, people are passing by and we’re losing on work. Get to work,” he commanded. As Chossy turned his back, the young coachman said: “Can you believe this? He’s first in line and he’s here chatting, holding our work back.”
At this point, Chossy, who overheard the comment, rebutted with: “No, no, no! The ones holding back work are the ones charging €200 for a trip. This is why we get a bad name”

The coachman who can speak six languages
By 1pm, Gafa is seen negotiating in fluent Spanish with a couple, who eventually accept his terms. On the tour round Valletta, he said: “I can speak in different languages. I learnt English from school, Italian from TV, Russian from my ex-girlfriend, French because I race horses in France during winter months and Spanish… I don’t know, I guess I learnt it on the job here, but I can speak it.”
Without going into excessive detail or adding historical fantasy and spice, Gafa explains to his passengers where the key Valletta venues are, and their historical and current uses.

Back to the stables
At 3:30pm, Chossy returns back to the stables, where three of Galea’s young children await to give him a hand with the undressing of the carriage and washing down the horse.

---

• It takes at least €5 daily to keep a horse, notwithstanding costs related to the stables. A lot of coachmen avoid the regular use of veterinarians and work on the medical needs of the horse themselves, whenever possible.

• During the peak months, cabbies in Valletta make a maximum of three trips a day, although there are days when some do not even manage to work a single ride.

• When cruise liners come in, work may increase to four trips per day. Coachmen however complain that the position assigned for the cabstand at the Valletta waterfront is placed last in line after the bus stop and stands for minibuses and taxis. The bus stop there is placed at a blind corner.

• Horses used for rides are usually imported from Tunisia, as they are known to be a tougher breed. Since Malta’s accession to the EU, a good number of horses are coming from France and Sweden.

• More often than not, horses used for cabby rides would have had an unsuccessful stint at horse racing or polo.

• A horse for rides would generally cost in the €1,000 region, although prices could go up to €2,500.

• Some horses can live up to 30 years. Most of them die of appendicitis.

• Although in previous years horses used to work harder, some had a career that lasted as long as 25 years. Their working conditions nowadays have restricted their expected working years to 12 to 14 years.

• Horses are often sold as pets when they retire.

• Horses that are sold for food are normally born in Malta. Such horses would be bred for racing, but because of an injury or because they are not up to the racing calibre, they are sold and processed for meat.

• Most carriages are between 100 and 150 years old. Their design is very elaborate and very difficult to reproduce, as it is made out of solid parts of turned wood and steel. There are no welded parts. Carriages are all handmade, by means of a mallet and a forge.

• There is only one model of the traditional Maltese carriage, and differences between one and the other are not noticeable to the naked eye.

• A number of carriages had been sold to Gibraltar as collectors’ items, but there was a point when this lucrative practice became restricted by law.

• There are only two people left in Malta who are capable of repairing carriages, and they are both old-aged.