Chingay is going big this year, with giant puppets, an 8m-tall straw horse, the country's largest batik painting, and - at the heart of it all - some 70,000 volunteers and performers to usher in the Year of the Horse in an explosion of sound and colour.

This is the grandest showing by the annual Chinese New Year procession since it was first held in 1973 to liven up festive celebrations.

With the theme "Colours of Fabric, One People", the parade saw double the number of volunteers than in last year's Chingay, and the most number of foreign performers yet, with more than 800 people from six countries.

On the first run of the parade last night, horses from the Singapore Turf Club, along with performers bearing horse sculptures designed by Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts

students, marched down the street, alongside floats and performers from different local and foreign groups in a two-hour extravaganza.

The parade weaves through the F1 Pit Building again tonight.