Word.ws English Dictionary

one-horse race

one-horse race noun: a horse race in which a single horse takes such a considerable lead that the other horses are no longer contenders to win.

Noun

one-horse race (plural one-horse races)

  1. (informal) A horse race in which a single horse takes such a considerable lead that the other horses are no longer contenders to win.
    • Since riding Harry Payne Whitney's Whiskery to victory in the Kentucky Derby, Jockey Linus ("Pony") McAtee has twice broken into the news in unconventional fashion. A fortnight ago, he won a one-horse race ("walkover") at Belmont Park, N. Y.1927 June 13, “Sport: Again, McAtee”, in Time, retrieved 26 Jul 2014
    • Sinister Minister . . . kept extending his lead and turned the stretch run into a one-horse race.2006 April 16, Bill Finley, “Sinister Minister Joins Baffert's Derby Stable”, in New York Times, retrieved 26 Jul 2014
  2. (broadly, idiomatic) An election campaign or other competitive situation in which only one competitor is entered or in which only one competitor has a realistic chance of winning.
    • Although Mr Balladur is far ahead in the opinion polls, the spring election is far from being a one-horse race.1995 January 19, Andrew Marshall, “Balladur takes first step to presidency”, in The Independent, UK, retrieved 26 Jul 2014
    • A system for creating software that runs, unaltered, on all sorts of computers and devices . . . could transform the software business in the network era from a one-horse race led by Microsoft to a true contest.1998 April 5, Robert D. Hof, “Commentary: JAVA can be a contender—If Sun lets it”, in Businessweek, retrieved 26 Jul 2014

Forms of one-horse race

pluralone-horse races

Questions about one-horse race

What does one-horse race mean?
One-horse race means a horse race in which a single horse takes such a considerable lead that the other horses are no longer contenders to win.
What part of speech is one-horse race?
One-horse race is a noun.
What is the plural of one-horse race?
The plural of one-horse race is one-horse races.

Words near one-horse race in the dictionary

  1. one-holer
  2. one-holers
  3. one-horse
  4. one-horse lawyer
  5. one-horse lawyers
  6. one-horse race
  7. one-horse races
  8. one-horse town
  9. one-horse towns
  10. one-hot
  11. one-hots

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: one-horse race (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-one-horse race.ogg.

Cite this entry: “one-horse race.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/one-horse_race. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.