Wooden Horse/Steeple Racing Game? Vintage

By the look of the writing on the base of the object, I would say that it is more than likely Japanese in origin.  The construction is definitely wooden possibly rosewood as English spice tower cases were made out of Rosewood etc.  The horse is quite prominent in Oriental mythology particularly Chinese and Japanese.  There is also a possibility that it is Korean as the Korean pictograms (characters) in some respects are very similar to those of the Japanese, and quite a few Japanese artificats take their influence from Korean designs.  Korean ceramicists were responsible for many Japanese design styles in Ceramics, so there would be no reason not to suggest that this may in fact be Korean.  At least it gives you some place to start. 

I hope this helps

Dean (MATCAT010)

Avid Antiques collector

The number 5 hold tremendous significance in nearly all Bhuddist traditions.  It refers to the Five Colours, Five Senses, the Five Wisdoms and Five Bhudda and a host of other important philosophies.  However, there a a miriad of associated with the number 5.  The number 5 is intimately associated with the Chinese theory of the 5 elements, a concept underpinning the Zodiac calender.  It is the Bhuddist Zodiac symbol for people born in the years 1930, 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, and 2002.   It Bhuddist patron is Seishe Bosatsu who is one of Bhudda's five attendants.

The colours you have in your game are also represented in Bhuddist mythology and represent the following:

Color	Blue	Black	White	Red	Green	Yellow
General Meanings	coolness, infinity, ascension, purity, healing	primordial darkness, hate	learning, knowledge, purity, longevity	life force, preservation, the sacred, blood, fire	balance, harmony, vigor, youth, action	rootedness, renunciation, earth
Seen In:	turquoise, lapis lazuli	black thangkas	White Tara, white elephant	coral, red thangkas	Green Tara	saffron robes of monks
Emotion, Action	killing, anger	killing, hatred	rest and thinking	subjugation and summoning	exorcism	restraining and nourishing
Transforms:	anger into mirror-like wisdom	hate into compassion	delusion of ignorance into wisdom of reality	delusion of attachment into the wisdom of discernment	jealousy into the wisdom of accomplishment	pride into wisdom of sameness
Buddha	Akshobhya	n/a	Vairocana	Amitabha	Amoghasiddhi	Ratna-sambhava
Part of Hum	the dot (drop) on the crescent	n/a	the crescent	syllable 'ha'	vowel 'u'	the head
Body Part	ears	n/a	eyes	tongue	head	nose
Element	air	air	water	fire	n/a	earth

Based on this information, I would quite confidently say that it is definitely Oriental and it could be from any of the Asian Countries who practice Bhuddism, most likely Japanese as I said before as they have embraced the teachings of Buddism for thousands of years.  The game is probably very similar to the prayer wheels you quite often see in Japanese temples where they are spun and the person spinning asks for their prayers to be answered.  As it looks like this is a similar sort of thing, the centre spindle spins the base with the pictures of Horses and the circular pieces may be put on top of this spinning portion and see if they indeed line up once it has finished spinning.  This is an idea only based on what I have seen.

I'll keep on searching for you but this is much more than we had the first time.  As I said, I am very confident that it is a game used in a Japanese household with a tangible Bhuddist connection based on the above information

Cheers

DEAN