For over a century wire has been synonymous for the finish line in horse racing, because of the wire stretched across the track that the horses passed under at the end of a race. The Oxford English Dictionary records the term from McFaul’s Ike Glidden (1902): “The conquering colt swept under the wire for a nose ahead of the trotter.” But The Dictionary of Americanisms cities an earlier, 1887 U.S. newspaper usage, claiming it as an Americanism and defining wire incorrectly as an “imaginary line marking the finish” in horse racing. Noting that the term wire is usually used in phrases, The Dictionary of Americanisms goes on to date down to the wire as an expression first recorded in 1950 in the newspaper account of a baseball game. Widely used as slang now for “to the very last moment or the very end,” it is also heard as to go to the wire.