Chinese Zodiac: The Horse

The Chinese zodiac is a repeating 12-year cycle in which each year is associated with one of twelve animals: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. The animal of your birth year is believed to shape your personality, temperament, and compatibility with others.

The Horse is the seventh animal in the cycle. Recent and upcoming years of this sign: 1930, 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014, 2026, 2038. Those born under this sign are traditionally regarded as energetic, sociable, and free-spirited, full of vitality and averse to confinement in every form.

Horse Woman

The woman born in the years of the Horse is an explosive presence. She lives in the present, seeks the pleasure of the moment, laughs loudly, flirts, dances. She does not like solemn conversations or closed groups where everyone whispers. She wants light, movement, people around her. When she enters a place, the atmosphere becomes livelier — and when she leaves, she often takes the liveliness with her.

She is a woman independent to the bone. She asks no one's permission for anything and reacts almost allergically to every attempt to confine her. She dislikes jealous partners, dislikes suffocating family obligations, dislikes anyone telling her where she ought to be and what she ought to do. Her freedom is not a luxury — it is a necessity.

In love she is passionate but also fickle. She can become crazy about a man, place him at the center of her life — and two months later not understand what she saw in him. This does not mean she is shallow. It means she lives with great intensity and seeks the same intensity to continue in her relationship. The moment the relationship becomes routine, she begins to feel she is dying.

She works hard when something excites her, but grows bored easily. She needs variety, travel, new experiences — otherwise she withers. Her friends are many, but few are those who truly know her in depth. And with those few, her devotion is absolute, almost moving.

Horse Man

The Horse man is the very embodiment of ever-moving energy. You will not see him sitting in a chair for long, he does not stay in the same job once it ceases to thrill him, he does not bind himself to places or routines. If you meet him at a conference, the following year he may be on another continent and in another profession — even though last time he spoke with passion about what he was doing then.

He is charming, witty, capable of making friends in no time. Women notice him for his energy and for his laugh, which is loud and sincere. But his very nature struggles with long-term commitment. Not because he does not love — often he loves a great deal — but because the idea that his life is already drawn to the end from now fills him with anxiety.

In love he wants a woman who can keep up with his rhythms yet have her own life. A clingy woman repels him quickly. If he finds a companion who shares his enthusiasm for new experiences and leaves him room to breathe, he can be one of the happiest and most devoted men there is. But if he feels restricted, he will disappear — if not physically, at least emotionally.