1990 Chinese Zodiac: Year of the Metal Horse
1990 is the year of the Yang Metal Horse. The Metal Horse year runs from January 27th, 1990 to February 14, 1991. If you were born in 1990 on or after January 27, your Chinese zodiac sign is the Horse and your element is Metal. Born earlier in January? You belong to the year before.
Born in January or early February 1990? Read this first
The Chinese zodiac year does not start on 1 January. The Metal Horse year begins on January 27th, 1990. That one date changes the answer for everyone born in the weeks before it.
You were born before the new year turned, so you belong to 1989's sign — not 1990's.
Read the 1989 page instead →The rest of this page is yours. Everything below describes the Yang Metal Horse.
This is the single most common mistake in Chinese astrology, and it is why two people born weeks apart in the same calendar year can have completely different signs.
What a Metal Horse actually is
A Metal Horse is someone born in a Horse year that also carries the Metal element. In Chinese astrology your animal is your zodiac sign (it shapes who you are), and the element is the "energy flavour" running through it that year. So a Metal Horse blends the Horse's nature with Metal's energy of discipline, precision and standards — a more specific portrait than the Horse alone.
Metal in plain terms. Metal is the energy of autumn — refined, clear and quality-focused. It adds structure, integrity and a sharp sense of what matters and what to let go.
They cut through noise and hold a standard others rise to meet.
Rigid Metal can turn critical, perfectionist or emotionally guarded.
Horse strengths and blind spots
Where you are strong. Horses bring extraordinary energy and enthusiasm to everything they do. They are honest, warm, and naturally sociable, rarely alone for long. Their optimism carries teams through hard stretches.
Where it costs you. Horses can be impatient, commitment-averse, and restless. They may move on before finishing what they started.
Work that suits a Metal Horse
Salesperson, traveler, journalist, entertainer, entrepreneur, tour guide, coach, performer.
Read that as a description of the conditions you do your best work in, not a list you have to pick from. Metal shapes how you work as much as the Horse shapes what you are drawn to.
Who the Horse gets on with
In the classical system the twelve animals fall into groups that support each other and pairs that grind. For the Horse, the natural allies are Tiger, Goat and Dog, and the hardest work tends to be with Rat, Ox and Rooster.
Lucky colours, numbers and hours for the Metal Horse
These belong to the Horse as a sign, which means they are shared by everyone born in a Horse year. A colour chosen for you works differently: it is picked to feed whichever of the five elements your own chart is short of, and two Horses can need opposite colours for that reason.
Other Metal Horse years
The animal cycles every 12 years and the element every 10, so the exact pairing Metal Horse only comes round once every 60 years. Anyone born in these years shares your sign exactly:
Your birth year is one pillar out of four
Everything above is true of you — and equally true of everyone else born in 1990. Millions of people share the Metal Horse sign.
What separates your chart from theirs is the month, day and hour you were born. Those three add three more pillars to the one on this page. Together they decide whether your core element — the character at the centre of your chart, traditionally called your Day Master — is supported or drained, which of the five elements you are carrying too much of, which one is missing, and which ten-year cycle you are standing in right now.
That is the part a page about 1990 cannot know. It needs your birth time.
See your full chart, not just your year
Free, and it takes a birth date. Your Energy Chart reads all four pillars and shows the element balance behind them.
or browse every zodiac year →