Samuel Henry Alken belonged to the celebrated Alken dynasty of sporting artists, a family whose work helped define the visual culture of British field sports in the late 18th and 19th centuries. The son of the prolific painter and engraver Henry Thomas Alken, and grandson of Samuel Alken, he was trained within this established tradition, inheriting both its subjects and its lively, descriptive style. Samuel Henry Alken worked primarily in London, producing paintings and watercolours of hunting, racing, and coaching scenes, often in a manner closely aligned with his father’s work, though typically with a brighter palette and a more detailed finish. Like many of his family, Alken was less concerned with formal portraiture than with capturing the spirit and incident of sporting life. His works often focus on moments of excitement or mishap—falls, collisions, or bursts of speed—reflecting both the unpredictability of the sport and the appetite of contemporary audiences for scenes of action and narrative. This painting stands as a characteristic example of his output, combining keen observation with a vivid sense of immediacy, and situating the viewer within the dynamic world of early 19th-century British racing.