A carousel-like recreation facility built in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan province, has drawn criticism from the public for using real horses instead of wooden ones, Chengdu Economic Daily reported on Sunday.

The ride has been open for about two months. The horses are hitched to the steel tubes of the carousel and have to move in a circle driven by the power machine. People can ride real horses for about four minutes at a time and the facility is in operation for four hours a day.

The operator said that they have six trained ponies and four of them are available in rotation every day.

"It is natural to walk horses every day and the ride just can help them," the staff member said, adding that the idea for the ride comes from the traditional merry-go-round.

However, many people think it is cruel and oppose making money from the horses in this way.

"People should ride horses at a professional horse ranch instead of a carousel in which real horses are tied. The ponies are living creatures, not toys. It's inhuman," said by Feifei, a netizen from Chengdu.

"The horses move not by their free will but are forced by the machine so they cannot relax at all," said Zhoubo, a manager from a horse riding club in Sichuan.

However, Zhou Ming, who is with a wildlife help center in the city, said that judging from the duration and intensity of the activity for the horses, it does not have an enormous affect on the horses.

"In our country, there are no regulations or laws that ban living animals from amusement equipment," he said, adding that he thinks there is nothing wrong with it.