The seven-card Horse Shoe is a convenient, basic layout that can be used to answer different types of questions, especially concerning questions where insight would be helpful. Like several other spreads, it has cards representing the past, present, and future.
The pinnacle of the Horse Shoe, looking like the top of the mountain, shows the obstacle or challenge that needs to be addressed and overcome. Card #6 suggests a course of action to meet this challenge. The final card shows the outcome or future, should this advice be followed.
Other clues are provided in Cards #3 and #5, which indicate hidden or outside influences that come into play, affecting the journey to your goal.
Obstacle  2 of Pentacles |
||
Hidden Influences  7 of Swords |
External Influences  2 of Wands |
|
The Present  King of Wands |
Suggestion  2 of Cups |
|
The Past  7 of Cups |
The Outcome  4 of Cups |
The Past Card represents past events that are affecting the question.
7 of Cups
Strange chalices of vision, but the images are more especially those of the fantastic spirit.
Reversed Meaning:
Desire, will, determination, project, ambition.
King of Wands
The nature to which this card is attributed is dark, ardent, lithe, animated, impassioned, noble. The King uplifts a flowering wand, and wears what is called a cap of maintenance beneath his crown. He bears the symbol of the lion, which is emblazoned on the back of his throne.
Upright Meaning:
Dark man, friendly, countryman, generally married, honest and conscientious. The card always signifies honesty, and may mean news concerning an unexpected heritage to fall in before very long.
7 of Swords
A man in the act of carrying away five swords hastily; missing two which remain stuck in the ground. A camp is close at hand. He is a thief.
Upright Meaning:
Good advice, counsel, instruction, attempt, wish, hope, confidence, bravery, a dirty job that needs to get done.
2 of Pentacles
A dancing young man has a pentacle in either hand, and they are joined by the lemniscate, the sign of eternity.
Reversed Meaning:
Enforced gaiety, simulated enjoyment, literal sense, handwriting, composition, exchanging letters.
2 of Wands
A tall man looks from a battlemented roof over sea and shore; he holds a globe in his right hand, while a staff in his left rests on the battlement; another is fixed in a ring. The Rose and Cross and Lilly should be noticed on the left side.
Reversed Meaning:
Trouble, fear, physical suffering, disease, chagrin, sadness, mortification, trivial disappointments.
2 of Cups
A youth and maiden are pledging the love of one another, and above their cups rises the Caduceus of Hermes, between the great wings of which there appears a lion's head. It is a variant of a sign which is found in a few old examples of this card.
Reversed Meaning:
Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sympathy, the interrelation of the sexes, and – as a suggestion apart from all offices of divination – that desire by which Nature is sanctified.
4 of Cups
A young man is seated under a tree and contemplates three cups set on the grass before him; an arm reaching out from a cloud offers him another cup. His expression notwithstanding is one of discontent with his surroundings.
Reversed Meaning:
Novelty, presage, new instruction, new relations.