East Anglia is usually depicted as an agricultural region, but Newmarket Heath is associated with the turf. The heath, with its famous 'rubbing-down houses' (used for cooling horses over heated during races), was the subject of the only two pure landscapes Stubbs ever painted.

Here one of the houses appears on the right, and Newmarket town with St Mary's Church in the distance. In the foreground are portraits of the well-known racehorse, Otho, and of John Larkin, probably a gentleman-jockey.