Smacking Holmes upside the head; an analysis of Silver Blaze

Sinister interpretations
What would one of my analyses be without a look at the darker subtext? Is it possible that Holmes kept the news of his discovery of Silver Blaze secret so that he might bet on the horse at very favorable odds? Is this the deal he made with Silas Brown?

Even more sinister, did he really keep Colonel Ross in the dark for four days? Or did he collude with the colonel and was that the reason Ross withdrew his other horse from the race?

Did Watson bet on the horse? And is Watson a reliable narrator in this instance?

Of course, one of the problems with sinister speculation is that it begets more speculation. Why did Holmes wait two days before traveling to Dartmoor? Was the great detective a party to the plan to nobble Silver Blaze and it went horribly wrong with Straker’s death.

I do not want to think that Holmes would have anything to do with injuring a horse, even if it were to be only a temporary lameness. But neither do I like the idea of a Holmes petty enough to leave Colonel Ross guessing for four days when his horse might show up.

Other sources
You may also want to visit Discovering Sherlock Holmes: A Community Reading Project from Stanford University for annotations to this story. Good-night Mister Sherlock Holmes has speculation on how Holmes calculated the speed of the train. For more on cataract knives: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Graefe_knife