Dark horse

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A dark horse is a previously lesser-known person, team or thing that emerges to prominence in a situation, especially in a competition involving multiple rivals, [1] that is unlikely to succeed but has a fighting chance, [2] unlike the underdog who is expected to lose.

Contents

The term comes from horse racing and horse betting jargon for any new but promising horse. It has since found usage mostly in other sports, sports betting, and sports journalism and to lesser extent in nascent business environments, such as experimental technology and startup companies.

Origin

The term began as horse racing parlance for a race horse that is unknown to gamblers and thus difficult to establish betting odds for.

The first known mention of the concept is in Benjamin Disraeli's novel The Young Duke (1831). Disraeli's protagonist, the Duke of St. James, attends a horse race with a surprise finish: "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 grandstand in sweeping triumph." [3]

Politics

The concept has been used in political contexts in such countries as Iran, [4] Philippines, [5] Russia, [6] Egypt, Finland, [7] Canada, [8] the United Kingdom, [9] and the United States.

Politically, the concept came to the United States in the nineteenth century when it was first applied to James K. Polk, a relatively unknown Tennessee politician who won the Democratic Party's 1844 presidential nomination over a host of better-known candidates. Polk won the nomination on the ninth ballot at his party's national nominating convention, and went on to become the country's eleventh president.

Other successful dark horse candidates for the United States presidency include:


Perhaps the two most famous unsuccessful dark horse presidential candidates in American history are Democrat William Jennings Bryan, a three-term congressman from Nebraska nominated on the fifth ballot after impressing the 1896 Democratic National Convention with his famous Cross of Gold speech (Bryan would go on to receive the Democratic presidential nomination twice more and serve as United States Secretary of State), and Republican businessman Wendell Willkie, who was nominated on the sixth ballot at the 1940 Republican National Convention despite never having previously held government office and having only joined the party in 1939. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders is another classic example of a dark horse candidate, whose grassroots campaign in the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries came much closer than initially expected to toppling front-runner Hillary Clinton for the party's presidential nomination.

In Peru, "dark horse" candidates who won include Alberto Fujimori, who defeated Mario Vargas Llosa in the 1990 election, and Pedro Castillo, a previously unknown elementary school teacher, who won the 2021 election. [10] In the United Kingdom, Jeremy Corbyn was considered a "dark horse" candidate when he ran for the 2015 Labour Party leadership election; despite struggling to secure enough nominations from the Parliamentary Labour Party to stand as a candidate, he won the leadership in a landslide. [9] [11] [12] In Venezuela, then-President of the National Assembly Juan Guaidó was described as "the accidental leader" of the Venezuelan opposition; he declared himself acting president in 2019, during the Venezuelan presidential crisis. [13] [14] In Turkey, Ekrem İmamoğlu was little-known before his victory in the 2019 Istanbul mayoral election. [15] In Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, a little-known "dark horse" candidate, was allowed to run by the Guardian Council and won a surprising victory in the second round of the 2024 Iranian presidential election. [16]

Use in sport

The term has been used in sport to describe teams and athletes who unexpectedly outperformed their expectations in a competition. Examples include the Los Angeles Kings during the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs (who placed 1st despite being an 8th-seed entry into the playoffs); Bulgaria at the 1994 FIFA World Cup; Croatia at the 1998 FIFA World Cup and 2018 FIFA World Cup (who placed 2nd despite being ranked 20th in the FIFA World Rankings); and Morocco at the 2022 FIFA World Cup (who placed 4th despite being ranked 23rd in the FIFA World Rankings). [17] [18]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "A dark horse". The Phrase Finder. 11 December 2023.
  2. ↑ "Dark horse". Merriam-Webster .
  3. ↑ "Origins of Sayings - A Dark Horse". Trivia Library.
  4. ↑ "Who Will Be Iran's Next President?". Radio Free Liberty. 6 January 2013. Retrieved 19 April 2013.
  5. ↑ "Invest in Philippines, the 'Dark Horse' of Asia". CNBC. 17 November 2011. Archived from the original on 2013-05-23.
  6. ↑ Tikhomirov, Vladimir (22 May 2012). "Putin names a technocrat Cabinet". Equity. Retrieved 28 March 2013.
  7. ↑ Jussila, Osmo; Hentilä, Seppo; Nevakivi, Jukka (1999). From Grand Duchy to a Modern State: A Political History of Finland Since 1809. C. Hurst & Co (Publishers) Ltd.
  8. ↑ "About". The Dark Horse Report. Archived from the original on 20 August 2018. Retrieved 18 February 2016.
  9. 1 2 Gauja, Anika (2017). Party Reform: The Causes, Challenges, and Consequences of Organizational Change. Oxford University Press. p. 184. ISBN   978-0-19-871716-4.
  10. ↑ "Peru election: Socialist Pedro Castillo claims victory ahead of official result". The Guardian. 16 June 2021.
  11. ↑ Whitaker, Andrew (15 July 2015). "Andrew Whitaker: Don't rule out Labour dark horse". scotsman.com . Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  12. ↑ "Celebrations as Jeremy Corbyn elected Labour leader with landslide win". Green Left Weekly . 13 September 2015. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  13. ↑ Herrero, Ana Vanessa; Casey, Nicholas (2019-01-22). "How Juan Guaidó Rose From Being Virtually Unknown to Lead Venezuela's Opposition (Published 2019)". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-12-26.
  14. ↑ Krygier, Rachelle; Sheridan, Mary Beth; Gearan, Anne. "The accidental leader: How Juan Guaidó became the face of Venezuela's uprising". Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 2020-12-26.
  15. ↑ Wemaëre, Alcyone (4 April 2019). "Ekrem Imamoglu: From opposition underdog to Istanbul mayor". France24. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
  16. ↑ "Iran presidential election: Who are the frontrunners?". www.aa.com.tr. Retrieved 2024-07-06.
  17. ↑ Staff, S. I. (29 June 2018), Croatia has a real shot at winning the World Cup , retrieved 2021-07-04
  18. ↑ Holiga, Aleksandar. "Is Croatia Emerging as a World Cup Dark Horse?". Bleacher Report. Retrieved 2021-07-04.
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