The Royal Collection holds an important group of paintings by George Stubbs; all of them were acquired by George IV when Prince of Wales and all of them (with the exception of this one) were sent in 1822 from Carlton House to the King’s Lodge (later Royal Lodge) in Windsor Great Park, presumably as an appropriate setting for sporting paintings. In 1793 Thomas Allwood presented a bill to the Prince for £110 16s, for ‘Carving & Gilding eight Picture frames of half length size [40 x 50 inches] for sundry Pictures painted by Mr Stubbs’. This is one of thirteen paintings in the collection of these dimensions (40 x 50 inches), all in identical frames and all dated between 1790 and 1793 (OM 1109-12, 1115-8, 1122-6, 400142, 400106, 400995, 400997, 400512, 400560, 400994, 400587, 400510, 400562, 400943, 405001, 400549). It is not possible to say which were the eight mentioned in Allwood’s bill, and how they might have been grouped or paired off; but they all seem to have been conceived loosely as a set. In 1782 George, Prince of Wales was appointed Colonel Commandant of the Tenth Light Dragoons, thereafter known as ‘The Prince of Wales’s Own’. His pride in the Dragoons was such that in 1793 he spent his thirty-first birthday with the regiment, then encamped at Brighton. The artist’s skill as an animal painter is here matched by his accurate depiction of uniforms and his characterisation of the soldiers.