A stalking horse is a figure that tests a concept with someone or mounts a challenge against someone on behalf of an anonymous third party. If the idea proves viable or popular, the anonymous figure can then declare its interest and advance the concept with little risk of failure. If the concept fails, the anonymous party will not be tainted by association with the failed concept and can either drop the idea completely or bide its time and wait until a better moment for launching an attack.
Read more about Stalking Horse: Origin, Usage, Related Concepts
Famous quotes containing the words stalking and/or horse:
“Figure him there, with his scrofulous diseases, with his great greedy heart, and unspeakable chaos of thoughts; stalking mournful as a stranger in this Earth; eagerly devouring what spiritual thing he could come at: school-languages and other merely grammatical stuff, if there were nothing better! The largest soul that was in all England.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“The steed bit his master;
How came this to pass?
He heard the good pastor
Cry, ‘All flesh is grass.’”
—Unknown. On a Clergyman’s Horse Biting Him (l. 1–4)