“A day late and a dollar short”in other languages

Same idea, different pictures

The favorite picture is something useful that turns up after the moment has passed: mustard after dinner in Polish, a cross after the funeral in Czech. The Persian version comes from the Shahnameh, Ferdowsi's epic, where the healing potion reaches the hero Sohrab only after he has died.

French blames the police. In Offenbach's 1869 comic opera Les Brigands, the carabineers march on stage singing about saving the day and always arrive too late; arriver comme les carabiniers stuck.

Korean and the English stable door add a twist: fixing the barn after the cow is gone, or locking the stable after the horse has bolted, means taking precautions only once the harm is done.