... Lautrec was not idle. On March 10, the weekly magazine of
the Boussod et Valadon Gallery. Paris Illustré, published
a drawing of his, the Ball Masqué, in which he showed La
Goulue, in a tutu and some of his friends, such as kind Adolph
Albert who, like Bourges, exhorted him to a more moderate way of
life. Lautrec was also preparing for Paris Illustré a
series of four drawings to accompany an article on L'Eté à
Paris. Inspired by a song of Bruant--who was as sensitive to
the misery of animals as of humans---Lautrec chose for his subject one of the extra trace-horses that were put to the omnibus on
streets. On the other hand, his satirical spirit led him to
draw a scene of mocking realism. Un jour de première
communion, in which he showed a husband and wife in their best
and walking with their crowd of brats. (H. Perruchot, Toulouse- Lautrec, a definitive biography, London, 1960, p. 124)

The other two drawings for the article that appeared in Paris Illustré on July 7, 1888 were of a tired woman waiting to carry her heavy basket of washing across the street and Cavaliers se rendant au Bois de Boulogne. Intended to be reproduced in black and white, this painting has little color.

Although in the last seven years of Toulouse-Lautrec's life animals and sporting subjects appears in his work with increasing frequency. Prior to 1895 such subjects are relatively rare and this is one of the few pantings of the 1880s, other than those of circus life, that treats horses in such detail. It was about this work among others, that Mack (op.cit., p. 222) commented:

Many of his early pictures of animals are remarkable, not only for
their fidelity to nature but for the extraordinary skill with which the young painter has succeeded in representing rapid and often
complex movement.