Year of the Horse - LittleWanderingWren

Kung Hei Fat Choi

for the Year of the Horse!

My friends in Asia are excited for the Year of the Horse and

are all enjoying the major Chinese New Year holiday

which started Friday 31st January.

We too are excited, but for different reasons!

Peace and good health in the Year of the Horse! (馬年安康, mǎ nián ān kāng)

Here is our horse, Little Miss Hussy.

She is a three year old racehorse,

who has two wins, one second, one third and a fifth to her name.

We own a small part – like a tail!

We are hoping 2014 is her year…

Lucky/Auspicious Year of the Horse! (馬年吉祥, mǎ nián jí xiáng)

Do you know if you are born in the Year of the Horse?

Here are the years:

1930

1942

1954

1966

1978

1990

2002

2014

If you are born in one of these years they say you are clever, kind, animated and energetic. You might talk too much but you are cheerful, perceptive, talented and love to be in the centre of a crowd.

People born in the Year of the Horse

Chopin, Clint Eastwood, Nelson Mandela, Isaac Newton, Barbara Streisand, Oprah Winfrey, Paul McCartney, Rembrandt and Genghis Khan.

We recently went to visit Miss Hussy who has been out at grass all summer, following the disappointing 5th place in her last race. She has just come back into training and we were happy to see how much she’d grown on her holidays!

She is impossible to photograph, she is all snorts, pawing at the ground. You can see the swishing tail above. The day we stopped by, she was in the horse walker and was taken out to be shown to us. She was not best pleased, you could tell. She knows the routine, a stretch of the legs, followed by dinner. This ‘show and tell’ was an unwelcome interruption to her schedule…

Take the lead upon the horse! (一馬當先, yī mǎ dāng xiān)

She is not interested in the grass, don’t forget she’s had that in unlimited supplies over her hols, but she chomps impatiently away on the dirt, happy for the minerals. We pay a shed load of money to ensure she has the finest oats around, and she is happy as a pig in mud chowing down on dirt?????

This reminds me of a Chinese saying which I like,

“A good horse never turns its head to eat the grass behind.”

So, look ahead, not back…