Visitors to London during Royal Ascot week may care to visit the Osborne Studio Gallery in the city centre (SW1), where an exhibition of new works by Elie Lambert will be on show from next Tuesday until July 14.

It is tempting to liken Lambert’s paintings to Lowry’s celebrated Matchstalk Men but there is a great deal more to him than that. The artist knows whereof he paints, so to speak. A former amateur rider, he wrote for the Sporting Life, became a bloodstock agent and trainer, survived a cancer scare along the way and is now a celebrated equestrian painter. A Belgian by birth, he relocated to Deauville to take the air and sample the delights of the famous Hippodrome.

As Peter Thomas of the Racing Post suggests, his oil-on-panel works ‘of silkily attired men atop unfeasibly large, remarkably pink horses’ indicate that here is someone ‘who found Cagnes-sur Mer in summer a better bet than Widnes in winter’ - unlike Lowry, perhaps.

The selection is certainly up to date, with ‘The Ballydoyle Three’ fighting out the finish to the Arc at Chantilly, though a personal favourite is the oil on canvas Vue de l’atelier Deauville. Idiosyncratic, off the cuff and inspired, Lambert’s work will delight those looking to relax before or after the rigours of the great meeting this week.