Walter Craig’s Melbourne Cup Death Premonition.

Walter Craig’s Melbourne Cup Premonition.

Walter Craig’s Melbourne Cup Death Premonition.

In 1870, Victorian newspapers reported an extraordinary tale of a prophetic dream involving a Melbourne Cup winner and the death of a Ballarat businessman. At the centre of the story was Walter Craig, the proprietor of Bath’s Hotel, and a racehorse named Nimblefoot.

Walter Craig had emigrated to Australia from Cumberland, England, around 1850. Initially working as a surveyor, he was involved in extensive work on the Mount Alexander railway line before turning his attention to land speculation, buying and selling property.

However, ill health eventually forced Craig to reconsider his occupation. In 1858, he purchased Bath’s Hotel in Ballarat, seeking a business that demanded less physical exertion. The venture proved highly successful, allowing him to expand the premises and establish the hotel as a prominent local landmark.

It was during this period that Craig reportedly experienced a remarkable dream. He recounted the details to his medical adviser, describing a vision in which he attended the 1870 Melbourne Cup. While at the racecourse, he approached a jockey and asked why he was wearing a black armband.

The jockey allegedly replied, “It’s for the old gentleman at Ballarat: he’s gone at last.”

Craig was deeply affected by the dream, interpreting it as a premonition of his own death. Convinced that the vision would come true, he insisted that if he died before the Melbourne Cup, his horse must still be entered in the race.

He also urged a friend to back the horse, basing his confidence entirely on the dream. His insistence reportedly attracted ridicule, but Craig remained convinced that events would unfold as he had foreseen.

Tragically, Craig died on 8 September 1870, aged just 45.

The Melbourne Cup was subsequently delayed by a week because of heavy rain. When the race finally took place, Nimblefoot was entered as Craig had requested. The jockey wore Craig’s racing colours, along with a black armband in his memory. Against the odds, Nimblefoot won the 1870 Melbourne Cup.

For those who knew of Craig’s dream, the victory appeared to fulfil his extraordinary prediction: the horse had won the race, the jockey wore the black armband, and the “old gentleman at Ballarat” was indeed dead.

Was Walter Craig’s dream a genuine premonition of events to come, or a remarkable coincidence given added significance after his death? Whatever the explanation, the story of Craig and Nimblefoot remains a fascinating piece of Victorian racing folklore, connecting a celebrated sporting victory with a chilling tale of foreknowledge and mortality.

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.