NEW YORK – The battle over New York’s carriage horses just got hunkier.

Hollywood badass Liam Neeson went one-on-one with killjoy Mayor de Blasio, slamming Hizzoner for vowing to ban the city’s 220-plus clip-clopping, carriage-pulling equines from city streets and Central Park.

“They’ll die, you know, darlin,’ ” Liam, who at 6-foot-4 can pretty much look the 6-foot-5 mayor in the eye, told me in his gorgeous Northern Irish brogue.

The 61-year-old heartthrob interrupted his hectic A-list acting schedule to call me Thursday night, alarmed by de Blasio’s treachery.

“It’s criminal!’’ cried Liam. “This is an iconic, historic part of New York.

“The horses are incredibly well-treated. They’re regulated up the wazoo. They get five weeks’ holiday every year.’’ (How many people get that much down time?) “Tourists love them.”

He speculated that efforts to ban the carriage trade resulted from a land grab by greedy developers eager to get hold of horse stables on Manhattan’s West Side: “I think it’s about real estate. I’m not the kind of person to use my celebrity’’ to promote causes, he said. But, ‘‘the horses are happy”.  (read more)