Much has been written about the Horses of the Sun in Navajo mythology. Look up a Navajo legend about horses and you’ll find a version of this story.
Johano-ai, the Navajo Sun God, starts each day from his hogan in the east, and rides across the skies to his hogan in the west, carrying the shining golden disk, the sun.
He has five horses: a horse of turquoise (blue), a horse of white shell, a horse of pearl shell, a horse of red shell, and a horse of coal. When the skies are blue and the weather is fair, Johano-ai is riding his turquoise horse or his horse of white shell or of pearl; but when the heavens are dark with storm, he has mounted the red horse, or the horse of coal.
And a further interpretation of the colors is found in this accounting: The five horses of the Sun Father are a way of telling time, Navajo style. White shell and pearl horses represent dawn, turquoise is noon, red shell is sunset, and jet or coal is night.
1952, King of the Stallions, print courtesy of Charnell Havens
