Percheron was conceived as part of a series of British champion animals that Haseltine worked on from 1921-1924. The artist travelled around Great Britain modeling the animals from life and later refined the models in his Paris studio. Haseltine's study of ancient art--Egyptian, Greek, Assyrian, and Chinese--greatly influenced the figures in this series. Not only were the forms simplified and slightly stylized, but the artist experimented with different types of patinas, as in the present combination of gilding and silvering.

An example carved of Bardiglio marble, which was part of the commission of champion domestic animals of Great Britain ordered by Marshall Field for the Field Museum of Natural History, is now in the Paul Mellon Collection, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia.