The carriage horse that collapsed on a Manhattan street last Wednesday was “in distress” and “having trouble walking” in Central Park four hours before the troubling incident, a witness said.

The struggling steed, named Ryder, was also being berated and screamed at by his driver, who was seen slapping and flogging the horse with his reigns before he lied down on the hot asphalt for more than an hour on 9th Avenue and West 45th Street, according to parkgoer Caroline Smidt.

“This horse immediately caught my attention because he looked very different from the other horses,” Smidt, 42, wrote in a statement obtained by The Post. “I could see his ribs protruding, he was walking with his tongue out and was having trouble walking.

He was walking very slowly.”Smidt, a New Jersey resident, was at Central Park last week with her husband and daughter, when they saw Ryder.

She’s expected to discuss the horse’s troubles at a Tuesday press conference outside the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office alongside lawmakers and advocates that are calling for prosecutors to file animal cruelty charges and launch a criminal investigation into carriage horse abuse.

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so sad