Henry Alken and Thomas Sutherland

The High Mettled Racer
The Foal
In Training
The Racer
The Hunter
The Post Horse
The Death

16 x 13 inches

A very well-known and much-loved series of prints that depict the life of a racehorse from foal to death, via its heyday upon the racecourse. In the first plate we see money changing hands between two fashionably dressed gentlemen of the turf. The horse is then trained and raced before being relegated to hunting, delivering the mail and finally death down on the farm.

Henry Alken (1785-1851) effortlessly straddled the gap between fine equestrian art and Regency caricature. He was immensely popular throughout the first half of the C19th and his prints, in particular, have a delightfully whimsical feel about them. Many of his figures appear to have strolled directly from the cartoons of Isaac and George Cruikshank whilst his attention to equestrian detail secures him a place in the pantheon of great British sporting art.