Join in on the festivities this Father’s Day weekend for the Evergreen Rodeo Parade and two Rodeo Performances at 2pm (gates open at noon) both Saturday the 14th and Sunday the 15th. See the full schedule here: http://evergreenrodeo.com/PDF/weekend_schedule.pdf
As you may know in the Chinese Zodiac calendar it is the Year of the Horse (isn’t every year?!), hence the theme for the parade is the Year of the Horse. I am excited to be serving as one of the parade judges this year!
Here is an excerpt about the Year of the Horse from ChineseFortuneCalendar.com.: Horse is one of Chinese favorite animals. Horse provides people quick transportation before automobiles, so people can quickly reach their destinations. Horse even can help people to win the battle. Therefore Horse is a symbol of traveling, competition and victory. That’s why Horse is connected to speedy success in China.
Horses like to compete with others. They pursuit for their freedom, passion and leadership. That implies that people will have busy schedule for their goals in the year of Horse. Horse hour of Chinese Horoscopes is from 11 A.M. to 1 P.M. Sunshine generates lots of heat during the Horse hour. Therefore, horse is connected to heat, fire and red. Horses like the social activities, because horses like show off themselves. Since horse is a social animal and red is also connected to love, therefore. horse is treated as a Romantic Star in Chinese Horoscope.
Dragon and Horse are auspicious symbols to Chinese. Chinese said that the best flyer is the sky is Dragon and the best runner on the ground is Horse. Dragon and Horse are the symbols of high-rank, outstanding, noble and leadership. Chinese history book said Horse has 30 percents of Dragon personality. More than 8-foot tall Horse is called Dragon-Horse. There was a Dragon-Horse jumped out of the Yellow River almost 5000 years ago. Fu Xi saw that Dragon-Horse had a diagram on its horseback, which inspired him to invent the I-Ching Pre-Heaven Pa- Kua. Chinese civilization began to take off since that. Chinese sometimes encourage people using the Spirit of the Dragon-Horse. Dragon-Horse Spirit doesn’t mean only a person with full energy as the Dragon-Horse, but also, a person pushing himself to transcend his potential to hold the leadership.
Every Chinese dynasty, Chinese look for sturdy and beautiful stallions. The stallion must be tall and be able to outrun other horses. If the stallion can run one-thousand-Chinese-mile (about 312 miles) a day, then it called one-thousand-Chinese-mile Horse, which means winged steed. One-thousand-Chinese-mile Horses can help the emperors to conquer the nation. Also, a winged steed can save the master’s life by running away swiftly, if the master cannot fight with the enemy. Today, when a person is called one-thousand-Chinese-mile Horse, that means the person is a hard-to-find, outstanding, experienced elite and knows how to run the business.
One of famous one-thousand-Chinese-mile Horses in China is called Sweat-Blood Horse. They said the sweat of Sweat-Blood Horse is red, when it runs in high speed for a while. According to the study, Sweat-Blood Horse was a Turkmenistan horse breed. One Chinese emperor sent more than 50 thousand soldiers to Turkmenistan to bring back a thousand of Sweat-Blood Horses. But only half of horses arrived China alive.
Genghis Khan built the Mongol Empire by horses. The Mongol Horses were a smaller breed, they were bred for endurance, not for speed like stallions. Genghis Khan conquered Eastern Europe so quickly. Because Eastern European countries never realized Mongol cavalry can arrive their territories so fast and they didn’t have enough time to prepare the defense. They said each Mongol cavalryman had three or four horses. They will change another horse when one got tired. So Mongolian horses can take turn and get some rest. Mongol cavalryman even knew how to sleep in the saddle. That’s why they can travel long distances without stopping. We know horses can sleep while standing. Mongolian horses have a better sleeping skill. When they ran in a group, the horse in the center can sleep while running.
Horse is intelligent animal. Horses need to be trained to become useful to human. Human can make Horse famous. Without human’s guide, Horse just a wild animal. It doesn’t know where to go. There is no destination in its life.
