Late in life Leonardo planned a third equestrian monument, following on from the abandoned Sforza monument and the unexecuted Trivulzio monument. It is inherently likely that Francis I was the intended subject, shown variously as a triumphant military commander or a Roman emperor. As before, Leonardo began by considering a rearing horse, but his most carefully worked studies show the horse pacing, and he made a number of detailed studies of heavily-muscled horses in that pose.

But Leonardo seems not to have attempted large-scale or physically demanding work in his last years, and he did not put his mind to the practicalities of modelling or casting the sculpture.