Walter Craig’s Melbourne Cup Premonition.

Walter Craig’s Melbourne Cup Premonition.

In 1870 an incredible story of premonition was detailed in Victorian newspapers of a Melbourne Cup winner, and death. The premonition dreamer was Mr Walter Craig, and the horse, Nimblefoot!

Walter Craig had come to Australia from Cumberland, England in around 1850. He worked as a surveyor and worked extensively on the Mount Alexander railway line. Craig also worked as a speculator, buying and selling land.

 Due to illness, he decided to invest in a business that would require less physical effort from him and bought Bath’s Hotel at Ballarat in 1858. The hotel was very prosperous, allowing Craig to make additions and turn the hotel into the iconic location it is today.

Craig had expressed the details of a dream to his medical advisor, that he had gone to the Melbourne Cup race in 1870. While there, he had gone up to his jockey and questioned him on why he was wearing a black armband. The jockey replied; “it’s for the old gentleman at Ballarat: he’s gone at last.”
 Craig was so impressed upon by his dream that he insisted, that if he were to die, his horse must be entered in the Melbourne Cup. He told one of his friends that they must back his horse, based purely on his dream. For this, Craig was ridiculed, but still, he insisted that his premonition would prove true...

…and that it did. Walter Craig died at the age of 45 on 8 September 1870. 

The Melbourne Cup of 1870 was delayed by a week due to rain. Nimblefoot was entered in the race, with its jockey wearing Craig’s colours, and a black armband. Nimblefoot won the race, proving Craig’s premonition true.

Such was the impact of Walter Craig’s dream upon the psyche of Melbourne Cup supporters, that it inspired a poem:

CRAIGS DREAM

" THERE are more things in heaven and earth

         Than dreamt of by philosophy;"

Which, when vouchsafed by men of worth,

          All sceptical ideas defy.

Thus, of all dreams of which men tell,

       Nought could be clearer or less vague

Than that so strangely which befell

        The lost, the much-loved WALTER CRAIG.

One night, the veteran, on his couch

         I’ll, 'twixt the intervals of pain

(As next day to his friends did vouch),

         Dreamt he beheld that Racecourse plain,

Where yearly meets the sporting crowd,

         Anxious to see "the numbers up,"

And warmly greet, in accents loud,

          The Winner of the Melbourne Cup.

He dreamt he saw the well-known scene—

         The Stand, the leaps, the wall, the logs;

Crowds greater, too, than e'er had been;

         The usual swarm of worthless dogs.

He saw the horses at their post

         Before the starter's flag parade,

Of which his own nag pleased him most,

         Whose jock in violet was arrayed.

It seemed, besides, that he (whose loss

         Of late the sporting world must grieve)

Noticed the rider of his horse

          Was wearing crape upon his sleeve.

He watched the struggle down " the straight,"

          His own horse winning at the Stand

He saw (in dreams), with pride elate

           (Whose rider wore that mourning band).

Though from our midst he's passed away,

          This instance of the second sight

Has been fulfilled—and, strange to say,

          In every point minutely right.

Nought stranger fiction could invent.

           As dreamt, the horse so resolute

That carried off " the Great Event,"

          Was " Panic's" son, fleet "Nimblefoot."

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2019

Bibliography

'REMARKABLE DREAM.', The Australasian, (12 November 1870), p. 21.

'CRAIG'S DREAM.', Melbourne Punch, (17 November 1870), p. 7.

‘A CAULFIELD CUP DREAM.', The Horsham Times, (21 October 1902), p. 3.

'THE DREAM HORSE’, The Age, (11 November 1916), p. 14.

'DEATH OF MR WALTER CRAIG.', Portland Guardian and Normanby General Advertiser, (8 September 1870), p. 6.

'NIMBLEFOOT.', Weekly Times, (19 November 1870), p. 9.