<P> A dark horse is a little - known person or thing that emerges to prominence, especially in a competition of some sort, or a contestant that seems unlikely to succeed . </P> <P> The term began as horse racing parlance for a race horse that is unknown to gamblers and thus difficult to place betting odds on . </P> <P> 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 ." </P>

Where does the term dark horse come from
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