Sydney parade celebrates Chinese New Year

Mounted police don't usually get a rock-star reception in Sydney's CBD - but this is the year of the horse, after all.

Rocking horses, jockeys and a giant trojan horse paraded down Sydney's George Street on Sunday night, to the tune of Aussie pop classic Horses, by Daryl Braithwaite, to welcome the Chinese Year of the Horse.

Even mounted police officers patrolling the well behaved family crowd received an enthusiastic cheer from onlookers.

The City of Sydney says about 100,000 people lined the streets to watch the parade, which started at Town Hall and weaved its way through Chinatown before finishing with fireworks at Cockle Bay.

Quang Dang, who was at the event with his five-year-old son, said he was hopeful the new year would bring luck to his family.

"In our culture the horse is something that goes very fast so we hope everything can pick up from last year," he said.

John Reichel, 46, from Eastwood, was enjoying the parade with his partner and nine-month-old son Max.

He says he doesn't know much about the significance of horses in Chinese culture but the new year celebrations are an important time for his family.

China's ambassador to Australia Ma Zhaoxu said the event was important for Australia and China, who are enjoying a "growing" relationship.

"We have numerous common grounds but we (also) have differences," he told reporters.

"What we should do is to enhance our common grounds (and) to handle all those differences properly for the benefit of people both Australia and China."