COTHERSTONE has come home to the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle.
A painting of the museum founder’s Derby-winning racehorse, on which he had riding bets worth £4m today, has been acquired at auction through a bequest left by a former headmistress of Polam Hall School in Darlington.
John Bowes bred Cotherstone at his stud at Streatlam Castle, near Barney, in 1840, and, having named him after the Teesdale village, sent him for training at John Scott’s yard in Malton in Ryedale.
Cotherstone became regarded as the greatest racehorse of his day, but in an era when the sport of kings was notoriously crooked, he lost first time out in late 1842 which caused him to drift out in the betting to 50-1 for the following year’s Derby.