I'm reading Kim Philby's autobiography, My silent war, where in the early pages he describes an acquaintance as being under the horse's mouth, the proverbial horse being some high-ranking official.
Being situated under the horse's mouth is silly because horses, as far as we know, don't talk in a natural language. It would also be somewhat careless as horses are known to bite unprovoked on occasion. But the phrase quickly conjures up the image of a squire or assistant, loyally standing by his mounted master, near the horse's head, quite close to its mouth. In this light the expression makes sense, but I'd like to verify that, hence my question here.
To kill two birds with one stone I'd also like to ask about the etymology of the more canonical expression, straight from the horse's mouth. I'd expect the two to be somewhat related, but with issues of natural language one can never be certain.
Best Answer
Straight from the horse's mouth describes the most reliable information received directly from the source rather than second hand. Derivation is from horse racing, whimsically asserting that describing a prediction of winning should not be ignored because it is not from the owner, jockey or stable workers but from the horse itself. Likely Kim Philby is alluding to this. As a spy, high ranking officials would have the information he needed. So he suggests that his job placed him in the ideal situation to get that information directly.