Inscription along the bottom reads:

'The American trotter Rattler driven by George Osbaldeston Esq. Rattler being a very hard puller the Squire had his reins cut as short as represented and held them after the style of riding a race horse. The match cart & harness only weighed 2Cwt. The cart was without steps built by Hitchcock.'

Rattler was an American bred Trotting horse, purchased by the well-known horseman, George ‘The Squire’ Osbaldeston, and taken back to England. It was said by Hiram Woodruff that Rattler was the best trotter ever taken to England. In a race against the celebrated horse ‘Dutchman’, it became the most closely contested and best three-mile races ever trotted. For eleven miles the horses were never clear of each other ; and when Dutchman left Rattler in the twelfth, it was by inches only.

This painting was most likely commissioned in 1834 to honour the purchase of Rattler by Osbaldeston.  The horse was brought over from America to England to race in much publicised contests that were subsidised by heavy gambling from spectators.

George ‘Squire’ Osbaldeston (1786-1866), sportsman, was born on 26 December 1786 at Welbeck Street, London, the only son of the five children of George Osbaldeston (1753–1793), landowner and MP for Scarborough, and his wife, Jane (d. 1821), daughter of Sir Thomas Head. When his father died, the estate was left in trust for six-year-old George, whose mother squandered much of it.

Osbaldeston was expelled from Eton College after a year, but seems to have acquired his love of sport from this brief period.  His obsession was to be the best at competitive sports; he was skilled at billiards, cricket, shooting, rowing, tennis, horse-racing, carriage-racing, and fox-hunting. At cricket, he first played at Lord's in 1808 and bowled and batted for the All England team. He rowed competitively, with success from boyhood to middle age. He was a famous shot also, but it was horse-racing that Osbaldeston pursued in many forms. Nicknamed the Squire by the press, he was only 5 feet 6 inches tall but weighed 11 stone and was a powerful man, who rode well as a gentleman jockey in horse races and steeplechases, as well as carriage races and specifically trotting races.