Goodbye, Year of the Horse: What Comes Next?
The Year of the Fire Horse has less than three months left to run. It began on 17 February 2026 and ends on 5 February 2027; the Lunar New Year arrives on Saturday 6 February 2027 and hands the calendar to the Goat. Or the Sheep. We will come to that.
For a site that has spent nearly two decades writing about horses, having the whole calendar agree with us for a year has been very pleasant. Here is what the year was, how we marked it, and what follows.
The Short Version
| Begins | Ends | |
|---|---|---|
| Year of the Fire Horse | 17 February 2026 | 5 February 2027 |
| Year of the Fire Goat (or Sheep) | 6 February 2027 | 25 January 2028 |
| Next Year of the Horse | 2038 | |
| Next Fire Horse | 2086 |
The dates follow the Chinese calendar, in which the new year starts on a new moon in late January or February. Because that moment is reckoned in China’s time zone, the celebration can land a day later in calendars kept elsewhere in Asia.
Why a Fire Horse Year Was Unusual
The Chinese zodiac has twelve animals, and the Horse is the seventh. Each year also carries one of five elements, and the two cycles together take sixty years to repeat. So although a Horse year comes round every twelve years, a Fire Horse comes once in a lifetime: 1906, 1966, 2026, and next in 2086.
Tradition gives the Horse energy, independence and a dislike of being fenced in, and gives Fire intensity. Put together they have a reputation for being a bit much, which we covered when the year was announced in 2026 is Year of the Fire Horse.
In Japan the reputation once had measurable effects. An old superstition held that girls born in a Fire Horse year, hinoe-uma, would grow up headstrong and bring bad luck to their husbands. In 1966, the last one, births in Japan fell by about a quarter, to roughly 1.36 million, and bounced straight back in 1967. Demographers still use it as a textbook case of belief shaping statistics.
A Horse year comes every twelve years. A Fire Horse comes every sixty. If you missed this one, the next is in 2086.
How We Marked It
The Year of the Horse gave us an excuse for a run of posts, and the horse turned up in some unexpected places.
- China’s Year of the Horse stamps – the two-stamp set that had collectors queuing in the cold in Beijing.
- The cutest Year of the Horse mascots – four characters, each modelled on a real piece of Chinese horse history, from a Zhou dynasty bronze to the Przewalski’s horse.
- Monopoly – Year of the Horse edition – red envelopes, a zodiac wheel and a golden horse token.
- Year of the Horse at Disney California Adventure and its horse-shaped sourdough, which remains the most edible tribute of the year.
- 2026 is Year of the Fire Horse – where it started.
If you want the personality profile, our much older Horse of the Chinese Zodiac post has it, written back when the last Horse year, 2014, was still to come.
What the Year Meant
You do not have to believe that a calendar shapes character to enjoy a year in which the horse was everywhere: on stamps, on board games, in theme parks and on a great many red envelopes. For twelve months, people who never think about horses were asked to think about what horses stand for, and the answers were the old ones. Strength, freedom, loyalty, hard work and getting somewhere.
It happened to be a busy year for real horses too. The United Nations’ new World Horse Day, 11 July, had its big celebration planned on the Mongolian steppe, and the world championships were scheduled for Aachen in August.
Closer to home, it was a busy year here as well. The calculators arrived in January, the games followed, and the breed encyclopedia can now be read in Spanish, French and German as well as English. We would like to credit the Fire Horse’s famous energy, though coffee may have had more to do with it.
Goat or Sheep?
Both. The Chinese word for the eighth animal, yáng, covers sheep and goats alike, so English translations vary and you will see Year of the Goat, Year of the Sheep and occasionally Year of the Ram, all meaning the same year. 2027 is a Fire Goat year, the first since 1967.
After the Horse’s gallop, the Goat’s traditional character is a change of pace: gentle, patient, artistic and fond of company. In the zodiac’s matchmaking charts the Horse and the Goat are one of the six “harmony” pairs, each said to bring out the best in the other.
Image from couleewinds
Horse people have known that for a long time. Goats have long been kept as stable companions for horses, and we wrote about the friendship in Horse Buddies – Goats. So if the calendar is to be believed, the stable is in good hands for 2027.
When the Horse Comes Back
The next Year of the Horse is 2038, an Earth Horse. Here is the full run for anyone checking their own birthday:
| Horse year | Element |
|---|---|
| 1930 | Metal |
| 1942 | Water |
| 1954 | Wood |
| 1966 | Fire |
| 1978 | Earth |
| 1990 | Metal |
| 2002 | Water |
| 2014 | Wood |
| 2026 | Fire |
| 2038 | Earth |
One caution: the zodiac year starts at the Lunar New Year, not on 1 January. Anyone born in January or early February belongs to the animal of the year before, so a baby born on 20 January 2027 is still a Fire Horse.
Until 2038
There is still time to enjoy this one. Play a round of Breed of the Day, find where your favourite breed comes from on the breed map, or simply go and give a real horse a scratch on the withers. The Goat can wait until February.
Dates are from the Hong Kong Observatory’s Gregorian-Lunar conversion tables for 2026 and 2027.