Silver Blaze

Five days before the big race, the most famous horse in England disappears from a locked stable on Dartmoor. The stable-boy has been drugged, the trainer lies dead in a hollow with his skull smashed, and the police have a suspect who bet heavily against the horse. Holmes is less interested in what happened that night than in what did not. The guard dog stayed silent, and that silence points him to a killer nobody else has thought to suspect.

What happens in Silver Blaze

One Thursday morning Holmes tells Watson he must go to Dartmoor. All England is talking about the disappearance of Silver Blaze, favorite for the Wessex Cup, and the murder of his trainer, John Straker. On the train Holmes admits he wasted a day expecting the horse to turn up, then lays out the facts. On Monday night the stable-lad Ned Hunter was on guard at King’s Pyland, Colonel Ross’s training stable. When the maid brought him his supper of curried mutton, a nervous stranger stopped her, offered her a folded paper for the boy, then asked Hunter at the window for a racing tip. Hunter set the dog on him and he fled. At one in the morning Straker told his wife he was worried about the horses and went out into the rain. By dawn Hunter lay drugged with opium, the stall was empty, and Straker was dead in a hollow on the moor, his head crushed and his thigh cut. He held a small bloody knife in one hand and the stranger’s cravat in the other. Inspector Gregory has arrested that stranger, Fitzroy Simpson, a gentleman bookmaker who bet heavily against the favorite. At Straker’s house Holmes studies the dead man’s pockets: a candle, matches, a delicate cataract knife of the kind surgeons use on eyes, and a milliner’s bill for an expensive dress made out to a William Derbyshire. He asks Mrs. Straker about a silk dress she says she never owned. In the hollow he finds a burned match the police missed. Reasoning that a loose horse would head home or to the rival stable at Mapleton, he follows its hoofprints across the moor and finds a man’s tracks joining them near Mapleton. In a short private talk he breaks the trainer there, Silas Brown, who found the horse wandering at dawn and hid it so his own horse could win. Holmes then announces he is going back to London, to the scorn of the owner, Colonel Ross, but promises that the horse will run. As they leave he learns that three of the stable’s sheep have gone lame, and he points Gregory to the curious incident of the dog in the night-time: the dog did nothing. Four days later at Winchester a bay horse with no white markings wins the Wessex Cup in Ross’s colors. Holmes tells Ross to wash its face and leg, and it is Silver Blaze, his markings dyed over. He then names Straker’s killer: the horse itself. On the train home he explains the whole crime.

Where and when Silver Blaze happens

Timeline the story arc, beat by beat

1. The case
   Facts on a train

   Racing toward Dartmoor, Holmes sets out the facts: a drugged stable-boy, a missing favorite and a trainer dead on the moor.

2. The evidence
   A dead man’s pockets

   At Straker’s house Holmes fixes on a surgeon’s cataract knife and a milliner’s bill made out to a stranger named Derbyshire.

3. The scene
   The match in the mud

   Lying on his face in the hollow, Holmes finds a half-burned match because he was looking for one.

4. The trail
   Tracks to Mapleton

   Holmes follows the horse’s prints to the rival stable and frightens its trainer, Silas Brown, into confessing that he hid the horse.

5. The clue
   The dog in the night-time

   Holmes leaves for London after asking about lame sheep and telling Gregory to consider the dog that did nothing.

6. The race
   A horse in disguise

   At Winchester an unknown bay in Ross’s colors wins the Wessex Cup, and Holmes reveals it is Silver Blaze with his markings dyed.

7. The end
   The killer named

   Holmes reveals that the horse killed Straker, who had taken it onto the moor to lame it so it would lose the race.

Characters and how they connect

Character Relationships who connects to whom, and the themes that bind them

Themes in Silver Blaze what the story is really about

Symbols & motifs

Conflicts

Literary devices

The deduction chain

Holmes reasons in links. Opium has a taste, and curry is the one dish that would hide it, so the drug must come from whoever chose the supper: the Strakers, not Simpson. The dog did not bark, so the person who took the horse was someone the dog knew. Straker drugged his own lad, so his purpose was dishonest. The cataract knife could make a tiny cut under the skin of a horse’s leg and lame it without trace, which explains the trip to a hidden hollow and the candle and matches. A bill for an expensive dress in a false name shows a second household and a motive. Such a delicate cut would need practice, so Holmes asks about the sheep, and three of them have gone lame.

The negative clue

The dog that does nothing is a clue built from silence. Doyle makes the absence of a bark count for more than any object found at the scene.

Red herring

Simpson’s visit, his lost cravat, his weighted stick and his bets make him look guilty, and the wandering gypsies offer a second false trail.

Withheld solution

Watson, Ross and the reader see Holmes question the sheep and the maid but hear nothing of what he concludes. Everything is held back until the race, so the reveal lands as a single shock.

Twist ending

The murderer turns out to be the missing horse, so the two mysteries the story set up, who killed Straker and where the horse went, collapse into one answer.

Important quotes

The ending of Silver Blaze, explained

The ending turns two mysteries into one. At Winchester a bay horse with no white hair wins the Wessex Cup in Colonel Ross’s colors, and Holmes tells the furious owner to wash its face and leg in spirits of wine: it is Silver Blaze, dyed by Silas Brown to hide him. Ross then asks for the murderer, and Holmes lays his hand on the horse. On the train he explains. The curry proved the opium came from inside the Straker house, since no stranger could have known what would be served. The silent dog proved that the man who took the horse out was someone it knew. The cataract knife, the candle and the matches showed that Straker meant to make a tiny cut under the skin of the horse’s leg, laming it so it would lose while no one suspected foul play, and he led it to the hollow because the horse would make too much noise in the stable. The milliner’s bill revealed his motive: as William Derbyshire he kept a second, expensive woman who had buried him in debt. He had picked up Simpson’s dropped cravat, perhaps to tie the horse’s leg. When he struck a match behind the horse, it lashed out, the steel shoe hit him in the forehead, and he fell on his own knife. The lame sheep were where he had practiced. Holmes does not say who will be charged. He grants Brown an amnesty in exchange for the horse, clears the horse of guilt because it acted in self-defence, and goes off to bet on the next race. The verdict is tidy for the reader but generous to almost everyone except the dead man. Doyle himself later admitted that he knew little about racing, and that under real racing rules many of the people in the story would have been jailed or banned from the turf.

Common misreadings

Test yourself

A famous racehorse goes missing just before a big race, and its trainer is found dead on the moor. The police arrest a stranger who was hanging around the stable. Sherlock Holmes notices that the stable dog never barked that night, which means the thief was someone the dog knew. He works out that the trainer himself drugged the stable-boy and led the horse out, planning to make a tiny cut in its leg so it would limp and lose. But the scared horse kicked him in the head. Holmes finds the horse hidden at a rival stable, painted to look different, and it wins the race.

Flashcards flip, self-grade, and the deck remembers what you know

Compare & connect the story universe

Adaptation. Silver Blaze (1937, Film), Silver Blaze (1988, Television episode).

Discussion & essay prompts for class, or your next paper

Key questions students ask

• What is the curious incident of the dog in the night-time
• Who killed John Straker in Silver Blaze
• Why did John Straker want to lame Silver Blaze
• Why was the curried mutton important in Silver Blaze
• Where was Silver Blaze hidden
• What was the cataract knife for in Silver Blaze