ABSTRACT
WBY's inscription of the poem in AG's copy of PW06 carries the date ‘Sept. 1908’: the poet had been busy in Dublin for the first week of Sep., and returned to Coole on 10 Sep. In 1908, the Galway race meeting took place on 5 and 6 Aug., when WBY was in Dublin; he returned to Coole on 8 Aug., perhaps hearing talk there of the recent races, and Kelly assigns this as a likely date for composition of the poem, though there is no hard evidence for this. The 1908 meeting was attended by AG's uncle Captain Robert Persse, and perhaps also by Jack Yeats: WBY's brother was in Ireland at the time, had been to previous meetings, and would attend more, using scenes from them in his artwork, from pencil and watercolour sketches to larger-scale works later in watercolour and in oils.
