Why is the darkhorse the late-comer or long shot? Why dark?

I'm assuming the horse thing has something to do with racing?

Boy, CW, I have been looking for awhile for your answer and have just come up with nothing. The best I found was that it's "from the image of a little-known racehorse who makes a surprisingly good showing in a race." Yet, why is that image called a "dark horse?" I even went to Word Origins to see if they have discussed it, and it looks like they haven't. Maybe someone else here knows more.

My guess is that the horse is dark because we are in the dark about its true capabilities; not enough is known by us (or the bookies) to allow us to gain an informed idea of its chances of winning a race.

The OED agrees with Arnie.

From the OED Online:

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7. a. Hidden from view or knowledge; concealed, secret. to keep dark: to keep secret (colloq).

8. Of whom or which nothing is generally known; about whose powers, etc., the public are ‘in the dark’.

dark horse (Racing slang), a horse about whose racing powers little is known; hence fig. a candidate or competitor of whom little is known or heard, but who unexpectedly comes to the front. In U.S. Politics, a person not named as a candidate before a convention, who unexpectedly receives the nomination, when the convention has failed to agree upon any of the leading candidates

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The first citation is from 1831 by Benjamin Disraeli, British prime minister and novelist, 1804-1881. It's funny that the first written use of a U.S. term should be by a British prime minister.

Tinman

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Originally posted by tinman: The first [OED] citation is from 1831 by Benjamin Disraeli, British prime minister and novelist, 1804-1881. It's funny that the first written use of a U.S. term should be by a British prime minister.

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Hmmmmmm. Odd too that the first user should be a youth of 26 (he was born very late in 1804) who, as it happened, later rose to prominence.
Etymology on-line lists the term as being from 1842.

I see that 1831 was the year Disraeli published his second or third novel, The Young Duke. Perhaps a copy of it can be found on-line.

Perhaps a copy of it can be found on-line.

Doesn't seem to have been digitized yet. Benjamin Disraeli's father, Isaac D'Israeli (1766-1848), was an author. I have a mid-19th century copy of his fascinating Curiosities of Literature (1791-1823, 4 vols; 1824 1 vol.) which is a collection of his earlier magazine pieces on all sorts of strange weirdness in literature. It should be rather easy to find a copy for sale online, and it would make a fab stocking stuffer for your end of year, winter solstice festivities.

Found in a quote-book:

A dark horse which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grand stand in sweeping triumph.
Disraeli, The young Duke, Book i. Chap. v.

This seems to have nothing to do with the special meaning of the pdrase "dark horse". It simply describes a horse who happens to be dark.

Unless context indicates otherwise, I wouldn't take this as a viable supporting citation.

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It's funny that the first written use of a U.S. term should be by a British prime minister.

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The political use at a party convention is of course used only in the US, but the wider meaning of "dark horse", that of an unfancied outsider winning a race, is not uncommonly used here.

Was Disraeli even a Prime Minister at the age of 26?

The OED agrees with Arnie.

They had no choice; I am sure they know, as we do, that Arnie is always right when it comes to language.

I have no further dating on 'dark horse' as a long-shot in horse racing, but there's news on its use in political races.

One secondary source dates it to the 1844 U.S. presidential election. I suspect this is correct, but the author does not give any specific cite from that time. (I can't find any broad, collection of matter from this period, through which to search.)

The term "dark horse" in U.S. presidential politics is generally seen as beginning with Tennessee's James K. Polk, a noncandidate nominated by Democrats in 1844 on the ninth ballot after front-runners Martin Van Buren and Lewis Cass had deadlocked.
– Kenneth D. Ackerman, The Dark Horse (etc.), p. 24

Mencken instead gives an 1865 date, citing no primary source but claiming, "The first political use of dark horse, borrowed from racing, was in 1865." But Mencken is wrong, for I found an example in England a bit earlier, though not so early as 1844 – plus another that may perhaps predate 1865.

[Candidate for parliament chosen:] Why, who is it? He is not going to put in uncle Twysden, or my sneak of a cousin?" "No," says Mr. Bradgate. "Well bless my soul! he can't mean me," said Philip. "Who is the dark horse he has in his stable!" Then Mr. Bradgate laughed. "Dark horse you may call him. The new member is to be Grenville Woolcomb, Esq., your West India relative, and no other."
– W. M. Thackeray, Adventures Of Philip (pub. 1862 in book form, but serialized earlier. In the US serialization this part appeard in Harper's in Sept. 1862; I've not found the UK serialization-date, which presumably is earlier.)

It my be fate, or it may be chance – but, whenever a woman is desperate, there is sure to be a man handy to take advantage of it. The man in this case was rather a 'dark horse,' as they say on the turf.
– Wilkie Collins, Armadale, bk. 4 ch. XV (book pub. 1866; serialized earlier)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: shufitz,

Quote "...It my be fate, or it may be chance – but, whenever a woman is desperate, there is sure to be a man handy to take advantage of it....

Where did this WilKie Collins live? Certainly not in any town I know and more's the pity :-(

Ah, Richard, perhaps you misread.

Notice that Collins said, "Whenever a woman is desperate, there is sure to be a man handy to take advantage of it."

Sadly, he could not honestly say, "Whenever a man is handy to take advantage of it, there is sure to be a woman is desperate."

I agree with you: more's the pity.

Who knows the source of .....

When I'm not handling the hand that I fancy, I fancy the hand at hand." ??

I thought it was you, Jerry, who coined that phrase!?!?!?

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Originally posted by jerry thomas:
Who knows the source of .....

_When I'm not handling the hand that I fancy, I fancy the hand at hand." ??_

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Dunno, but it sounds like the Broadway song that says, "When I'm I'm not near the girl I love, I love the girl I'm near."

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A dark horse which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grand stand in sweeping triumph.

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People never describe natural horses as dark horses. They're black, brown, chestnut, roan -- but "dark" just doesn't convey any horse colour. Disraeli's use of "dark" conveys some dark blur, something dark out of the corner of your eye -- not a specific black or brown or chestnut horse that you were clearly seeing. I would suggest that this is an ideal candidate for the origin of the metaphorical usage. In our day Disraeli is famous for being prime minister, but back then he was very very famous indeed for being a fashionable novelist, and books like The Young Duke would have had a huge audience ready to take up his aperçus.

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Originally posted by aput:
I would suggest that [the 1831 Disraeli passage] is an ideal candidate for the origin of the metaphorical usage. ... back then he was very very famous indeed for being a fashionable novelist, and books like The Young Duke would have had a huge audience ready to take up his aperçus.

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Should be easy to check. If the metaphorical use began with Disraeli and spread due to the popularity of his novels, we should see quite a few examples of that usage in the years immediately following 1831, while the novel was new and fresh in its readers' minds.

Do we?

Here are the citations listed by the OED Online under "dark horse."

1831 DISRAELI Yng. Duke v. (Farmer), A dark horse, which had never been thought of..rushed past the grand stand in sweeping triumph. 1860 Sat. Rev. IX. 593/1 A Headship..often given by the College conclaves to a man who has judiciously kept himself dark. 1865 Sketches from Camb. 36 (Hoppe) Every now and then a dark horse is heard of, who is supposed to have done wonders at some obscure small college. 1884 in Harper's Mag. Aug. 472/1 A simultaneous turning toward a ‘dark horse’. 1885 A. BERESFORD-HOPE in Pall Mall G. 19 Mar. 10/1 Two millions of dark men..whose ignorance and stupidity could hardly be grasped. 1888 Boston (Mass.) Jrnl. 19 June 5/4 That a dark horse is likely to come out of such a complicated situation as this is most probable. 1891 N. GOULD Double Event 8 When he won the Regimental Cup with Rioter, a dark horse he had specially reserved to discomfort them. 1893 Standard 17 Apr. 6/6 Irish Wake, a ‘dark’ son of Master Kildare.

Tinman

You guys are awesome!

So now what are you gonna do with the pale horse in Revelation? Was the pale color a symbol of death prior to the biblical reference? Some cultures DO use white as the color of death, whereas we in the West use black, so the pale horse seems an anomaly in our culture.

The 'pale' horse was khloros, a Greek word often used for pale, ashen, or sickly faces: whether from fear, disease, or being lovesick. It was also pale green, as in new leaves; and more generally green.

Colorwise, Greek khloros doesn't mean white, but rather 'greenish yellow, pale green'. It also means pale or pallid, as aput suggested. It also has secondary meanings of 'green, unripe; fresh'. Greek for white was leukos 'bright, light, clear; white'.

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Originally posted by aput:
The 'pale' horse was _khloros_, a Greek word often used for pale, ashen, or sickly faces: whether from fear, disease, or being lovesick. It was also pale green, as in new leaves; and more generally green.

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So Sir Gawain's Green Knight might have ridden a pale horse? It seems the tale might contain some subtle wordplay with his color and his choler.

The Green Knight seems to have been a very bright green: in stanza 7 he's called oueral enker-grene (I can't find enker but a translation makes it emerald-green), then in 8 we have gay gaudi of grene and a grene hors gret and þikke, then in 9 þe fayre grene and a bande of a bry3t grene.

In contrast, Ancient Greek had no word that was just 'green'. Though khloros was the closest and could apparently be used for any green vegetation, its normal use was various pale shades: sand, ill people's faces, young shoots, and honey. Ancient Greek colour terms are notoriously hard to pin down.

We say someone is green about the gills when they look sick; partly they were saying this too. But it's hard to fit it into a neat categorization that, say, khloros meant 'pale green' and the other uses were merely figurative extensions.

The chemical element chlorine (Cl) was so named from khlôros because of its greenish colour.

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Originally posted by arnie:
The chemical element chlorine (Cl) was so named from _khlôros_ because of its greenish colour.

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And chlorophyl too, I assume. Indeed, the Green Knight was chlorophylic!

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Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
And _chlorophyl_ too, I assume. Indeed, the Green Knight was chlorophylic!

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Well - that's a dern site better than being chlorophallic!

If you're interested in how different languages divide up the visible spectrum and name colors, you can do no worse than stuffing your stockings with: Brent Berlin and Paul Kay Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution. A linguistic classic, but not without controversy.

If you love the color green to excess, would that make you chloroeuphoric?

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Originally posted by Caterwauller:

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Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
And _chlorophyl_ too, I assume. Indeed, the Green Knight was chlorophylic!

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Well - that's a dern site better than being chlorophallic!

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Well, roots are usually a bit darker.

For the record, the four horses of the apocalypse are, in Greek, hippos leukos (white horse), hippos purros (flame-colored horse), hippos melas (black horse), hippos khlôros (pale horse).

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Well - that's a dern site better than being chlorophallic!

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Well, roots are usually a bit darker.[/QUOTE]

Maybe if you bathed more often . . .

I have read this entire post.. and decided you are all headed for the asylum...

and I'm putting my money on SEABISCUIT...

Chlorophyll is the Greek for 'green(ish-yellowish) leaf'. Phyllon 'leaf'. The Green Knight might've been a chlorophiliac 'lover of green (things)'. Phyllon is from the PIE root *bhel- 'to thrive, bloom'; as are English blade, Latin folium, flos 'flower', English bloom, blood, etc.

LOL KHC!!!

Note here that we've antedated OED's earliest cite for 'dark horse', the 1831 Disraeli cite. We've found the term as early as 1822.