Northern Switzerland Extra train for the chaises at the Basel carnival

The horse-drawn carriages at Fasnacht will be combined into a single train for the 2025 edition. The Basel Fasnacht Committee is doing this in response to the declining number of such units and to better protect the draught horses, as it announced on Monday.

The remaining carriages will now all run one behind the other in the procession known as the Cortège. The procession will start in the Aeschenvorstadt on the outer route so that the horses do not have to pass the Steinenberg, which is sloping and therefore critical for horses.

In 2023, 15 such horse teams were still registered with the Comité, 6 of which took a break. Since this year, no new registrations of chaises with horses have been permitted for the Basel Carnival Cortège.

The use of chaises is generally controversial. Animal rights activists have repeatedly complained that the animals are exposed to too much stress when taking part in the carnival procession. At the 2018 carnival, there were two accidents involving fallen horses on the Steinenberg, which is now closed to carriages.