The horse is the fastest animal in the entire Chinese zodiac. So, why did it come in seventh place in the great race along the Jade River?

Before the race started, the snake actually attached itself to the horse’s foot. However, this relationship gives us almost no information about the state of mind of the horse because the horse didn’t know that the snake was there. This wasn’t like the rat and cow who negotiated some passage. The horse had no idea that there was a snake wrapped around its own leg. Only when the horse got to the finish line and the snake jumped off did the horse draw back in terror, screaming at the sight of a snake.

What?

This means that the horse didn’t look down the entire time.

The horse is considered to be the opposite of the rat. The rat is always looking around and seeing what is out there. It’s planning things. Horses don’t plan. The horse didn’t even look down the entire time it was running on the day of the great race. The horse, as a zodiac sign, is not known for acute perception.

The rat is hidden away in its home and planning how to build out more of its home or improve the security. It’s an architect. The horse doesn’t build a home. Horses can’t build homes because horses have to run free in super huge fields.

Horses actually need so much space and habitat. A group of wild horses can remain unseen for many years not because they’re so small or like to hide but because you don’t know where they are at any point in time. Because of this need for space, horses can suffer habitat loss quite easily. They just need so much space. They need to run to the water, across large expanses of land, and to graze different types of grass.

Anyone with horse in a prominent position in their chart needs freedom as a necessity. They need to be able to sprint in all directions at any given point in time. I’m not talking about one direction. I’m talking about all directions.

Horses are wanderers. They will explore a terrain in a big way. This is why the horse is the sign of high noon, of yang fire. Yang fire is the most yang of all of the ten stems. It’s this unstoppable and beaming sun. Horses are like the sun. They travel the world and they move powerfully. There’s nothing that can’t be touched by a horse, the same way there’s nothing that can’t be touched by the sun.

So why did the horse come in seventh place instead of first place if horses are so powerful and fast?

Remember, horses need a lot of space because they need to move in all directions and not just one. In order to get a race horse to run in one direction, people actually put blinders on their heads to block their vision.

When the race along the Jade River started, the horse didn’t run towards the finish line. It doesn’t take instructions. The horse ran sideways first. It did what it wanted no matter the conditions.

If you give a horse a rule, it will find the fastest way to break that rule. If you bait a horse with a reward, then it will vehemently reject that reward. If you threaten the horse with a punishment, it will escape. Horses can’t be controlled. You’re not supposed to try to. The horse is the sign of freedom.

There’s another reason why the horse came in seventh place even though it’s so fast. Horse is yang fire but its two hidden steps, ding and ji, are both yin.

If you were out in a field and you saw a horse running towards you, what would you feel? What if you saw a tiger coming at you? What if you saw a snake slithering slowly towards you? Most of us would be a lot more scared of the tiger than the horse. Most of us would even be more scared of the snake than a horse even though the snake is so much slower and smaller.

This is the difference between horses and other zodiac signs. Horses are incredibly fast and big but they’re prey animals. We as humans are not scared of horses. Horses are scared of us. That’s why they are so hard to find. They like to keep it moving because they are giant prey.

That’s the horse’s skittishness, by the way. That’s why a horse needs to be able to move in all directions. It’s a prey type animal. It eats grass. If you touch a horse, it might bite you but it won’t eat you. It is much more likely to just move away.

Horses are incredibly gentle. Do you know the reason why horses run so fast? Because horses have adapted to shared environments.

A group of horses will run further from a source of water to graze even though the grass closer to the river is better tasting and softer. Horses eat rougher grasses and go further from the river. They do this because they share their fields with cows. Horses let cows, who can’t move as fast, take the better tasting grass. They don’t compete. They just run further than needed and let others have the best food.

Horses are not competitive. Put one in a race and it won’t compete until you scare it or bully it into competing. Horses are generous. They take a look around and decide that there’s enough grass for everyone. They’ll just go a little further so that there is enough.

The world is big for a horse because they run across it. In such a big world, there is ample room and ample resources. That’s why a horse’s heart is so big. They know that the world has plenty as long as you make a little room for others. They will always go the extra mile for you.

Horses move like the sun—unstoppable. They are symbols of ultimate freedom. But horses contain yin fire inside. They have a little candle. The little candle is warm. It’s the type of fire that everyone likes to gather around because such a fire warms their hands and faces. Horses like to run free but they don’t travel the world alone. They have the gift of camaraderie.

Once, I watched a dreadful video about a group of horses facing capture. A corporation sent a helicopter to capture these wild horses. However, something really remarkable happened before the helicopter arrived. The horses started running. They started to run even before the helicopter lifted into the air.

A horse isn’t motivated by external constraints. They’ll just trample past them. They’re not motivated by competition. They know that the world is big enough and contains enough for everyone. You simply can’t tell a horse what to do and you can’t predict what they will do either. Why? Because horses are psychic.

The horses knew that they would be facing capture even before the helicopter lifted up. It was like magic. One horse just suddenly twitched and screamed at all of the other horses to start running. And then they all started running. There was nothing that could have given that first horse a heads up. It just had a feeling that something was about to go wrong.

The most important thing for a horse is intuition. Horses are powered by intuition. They don’t need to think about things. They don’t plan and they don’t scheme. They just do. The horse didn’t notice the snake wrapped around its leg. So what? It didn’t need to know. It simply went where it needed to go and came back to finish the race when it needed to finish. Right on time too. Horses are comfortable with not knowing things.