A dark horse is a previously lesser-known person, team or other entity that emerges to prominence in a situation, especially in a competition involving multiple rivals, that is unlikely to succeed but has a fighting chance, unlike the underdog who is expected to lose.
The term is suggested to have begun as horse racing parlance for a racehorse 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."
James A. Garfield, elected as the twentieth president in the 1880 United States presidential election; in the beginning of that same year, Garfield was a rising star in the Republican Party but had no interest in the presidency and endorsed John Sherman, the current Secretary of the Treasury. However, the 1880 Republican National Convention became deadlocked due to a split in the delegates between former Republican president Ulysses S. Grant, who was running for a non-consecutive third term, Senator James G. Blaine, and Sherman. The party sought a compromise candidate, and they opted to select Garfield over the latter's objections. Garfield, however, would be assassinated just six months into his term.
Republican lawyer and businessman Wendell Willkie from Indiana, who was unexpectedly nominated on the sixth ballot at the 1940 Republican National Convention despite never having previously held government office and having only joined the Republican Party a year prior in 1939 after being a lifelong Democrat. Wilkie ultimately lost the election in a landslide to incumbent president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Wilkie would later run again in the 1944 election but failed to win the nomination after disappointing results in the presidential primaries and suddenly died later that year at the age of 52.
Jimmy Carter, former United States Naval officer, Georgia State Senator and Governor of Georgiaelected the thirty-ninth president in 1976 over incumbent president Gerald Ford; in the beginning of that same year, Carter was virtually unknown outside his home state of Georgia but against all odds went on to win the nomination over rivals with more national prominence. Carter’s unexpected victory is widely credited with his campaign platform of presenting himself as an outsider not stained by the horrors of the Watergate scandal which seriously damaged public trust in the presidency. At the 1976 Democratic National Convention Carter made a joke of his obscurity beginning his speech by quipping to the audience "My name is Jimmy Carter, and I'm running for President."
The term has been also used in films, television series and video games for award seasons to describe then-unknowingly artists, filmmakers and game developers who beating out fellow competitors that heavily favored to win, most notably the Academy Awards and D.I.C.E. Awards. For example:
Crunchyroll Anime Awards is notoriously known for unexpectedly awarding the Anime of the Year or other categories to lesser-known anime series over fan-favorite competitors. In an inauguration edition, MAPPA's yaoisportsYuri on Ice made the highest "clean sweep" with all of its seven nominations including Anime of the Year over My Hero Academia– considered one of the biggest upsets in the anime industry. A similar occurrence has been made in the following editions, such as the video game-adapted anime series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and the manhwa series Solo Leveling notoriously won the Anime of the Year with their respective editions.
↑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.
↑"About". The Dark Horse Report. Archived from the original on 20 August 2018. Retrieved 18 February 2016.
