I've been kicking around the idea lately that dreams can be prophetic.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. I once read something about dreams that suggested

that sometimes we dream of something that's in the future, the same way we can dream about something in the past. And the dreams of future stuff will be just as confused and nonsensical as a lot of other dreams.

Your father's dream of the horses seems very much to fit that model. Yeah, someone who utterly does not believe such "prophetic" dreams are possible the dream and the figurine are simple coincidence.

Several times in my life I've had what I think were prophetic dreams, but what they were foretelling was not obvious at all until after the event being foretold came to pass.