"This was my third and final painting of Chief Singer who was an outstanding miler and very unlucky to come up against the brilliant El Gran Senior in the 2,000 Guineas. He was a rags to riches horse - the cheap purchase come good that all aspiring racehorse owners dream of!

As a result he attracted a lot of attention, and combined with his great physical maturity, size and scope, and his exciting way of running he was a horse who excited me from the first time I saw him (at Ascot, winning the Coventry Stakes).

When Chief Singer retired to stud I visited him whenever I went to Newmarket. He quickly made up into a magnificent physical specimen of a horse, devotedly attended by the stallion man Peter Wight and I decided to paint him again. I felt that the best time to do so would be the autumn. Horses with his colouring turn a wonderful deep rich colour in the autumn and I thought that would look fantastic against the deep golds of the autumn leaves. I had originally thought that I would paint him displaying his full strength and energy in some exciting way but though I visited him several times, on no occasion would he perform any 'fireworks' for me! I therefore had to revise my plan and paint him in the lazy laid back fashion with his wonderful swinging walk, totally at ease with Peter (as he always was).

The dog, Fingal, was only young and appeared in Chief Singer's final 'sitting'. At the time I had no intention of including him but later felt he would put a finishing touch to the picture and returned to Newmarket just to see him! This is a large painting and took nearly three months to complete."