The statue was made of marble and has traces of red and black paint.

The head of the rider was found on the Acropolis of Athens in 1877 and donated to the Louvre.

Parts of the body of the rider and horse were found ten years earlier in a Perserschutt ditch filled with statues broken during the 480 BC Persian sack of Athens.

The statue is displayed with a plaster cast of the head at the Acropolis Museum, while the head remains at the Louvre where it is displayed with a cast of the rest of the statue.

The statue was originally thought to be a part of a set of statues, perhaps paired with another as a mounted presentation of Castor and Pollux common on vases from this period.