ROME – It was meant to be one of the final rehearsals ahead of Italy’s Republic Day parade on 2 June. Instead, it turned into a night of chaos and fear, after a number of horses taking part in the procession exercises bolted following the explosion of a fireworks battery near their enclosures, triggering a stampede that sent those present scrambling for safety.
Among the injured was a female soldier from the Lancieri di Montebello regiment, hospitalised with multiple broken ribs and a punctured lung. Two other Army personnel were taken to accident and emergency. A police officer was also struck in the face amid the confusion. Around fifteen horses sustained injuries of varying severity and were placed in the care of veterinarians. According to one witness, at least one of the animals died of cardiac arrest.
The fireworks are believed to have been set off from a pyrotechnic battery installed along a road adjacent to the rehearsal area. Investigators are currently focusing on four municipal police officers: one is believed to have physically lit the fuse, while the other three were present at the scene. The case is being handled by the Carabinieri of the Rome Centro company, in cooperation with the local police. An initial report has already been submitted to the prosecutor’s office.
Sequential footage obtained by investigators, along with witness accounts, reportedly points to a clear overlap in timing between the ignition of the fireworks and the moment the horses broke loose. The animals covered several kilometres through moving traffic, damaging dozens of parked cars and colliding violently with military vehicles and other obstacles along the way.
“I swear, it was the most terrifying night of my life,” said one servicewoman who was present, in a voice message shared with colleagues in the hours following the incident. According to her account, the fireworks went off while the units were still stationary, just before the exercises were due to begin.
“We had no idea — we were standing down before the parade started,” she said. Then came the sudden blast. “The fanfare horses panicked, and the lancers’ horses just took off, mowing down anyone and anything in their path.”
The situation deteriorated rapidly, made worse by the fact that many soldiers were on the ground beside the animals when the explosion occurred. “My horse spun around three or four times,” the witness recalled. “I thought this is it — he’s going to bolt and I’m going to die.” What followed was a scene of utter panic. “They were crashing into military vehicles, falling, getting back up and charging off again. They had completely lost it.”
Rome’s municipal police chief, Mario De Sclavis, was unequivocal: there would be no leniency. “We will be uncompromising,” he said.
“We are looking into whether others were involved — because there’s a difference between stopping out of curiosity and being fully aware of what’s happening.” De Sclavis also disclosed that setting off fireworks during parade rehearsals had become “a vulgar tradition that has been going on for several years” — one, he stressed, in which his officers had never previously taken part.
The officers implicated in the incident have been immediately stood down from all duties related to the Republic Day celebrations — the first precautionary measure taken by the municipal police command while investigations into individual responsibilities continue.
