a horse wins a kingdom
Preserved but no longer current.
It is said that on the death of Smerdis (522 B.C.), the several competition for the throne of Persia agreed that he should be king whose horse neighed first when they met on the day following. The groom of Darius showed his horse a mare on the place appointed, and as soon as it arrived at the spot on the following day the horse began to neigh, and won the crown for its master.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “a horse wins a kingdom” mean?
It is said that on the death of Smerdis (522 B.C.), the several competition for the throne of Persia agreed that he should be king whose horse neighed first when they met on the day following. The groom of Darius showed his horse a mare on the place appointed, and as soon as it arrived at the spot on the following day the horse began to neigh, and won the crown for its master.
Is “a horse wins a kingdom” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.