This is one of only two known paintings by Stubbs devoid of people or animals, a moving example of the power of pure landscape. It depicts the raucous world of the racetrack the moment after—after bettors and jockeys, swank owners and exhausted horses have left the scene. Not much over a foot square, it has some of the asymmetrical composition of early Impressionist paintings: the truncated brick shed where sweating horses were rubbed down after the race, the distant rail of the track with observing towers. It's the absence of horses that we feel in this unnerving painting, a loneliness that extends in all directions. Stubbs is experimenting again, but in the realm of extreme feeling. Starting with horses, their grace and stunning beauty, Stubbs found his way to an austere psychological realm reminiscent of Edward Hopper.