back the wrong horse

Idioms

Also, bet on the wrong horse. Guess wrongly or misjudge a future outcome, as in Jones garnered only a few hundred votes; we obviously backed the wrong horse, or Counting on the price of IBM to rise sharply was betting on the wrong horse. Transferred from wagering money on a horse that fails to win the race, a usage dating from the late 1600s, this term is widely applied to elections and other situations of uncertain outcome.

Example Sentences

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back the wrong horse

They’re afraid to back the wrong horse, or to help some of these emerging groups who may end up having members of al Qaeda.”

From Newsweek ● Nov. 7, 2012

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023