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 bets worth £4m in today’s money riding, 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 the horse after the Teesdale village, he sent him for training at John Scott’s yard in Malton in Ryedale. In those days, the sport of kings was notoriously crooked, and although Cotherstone was entered for the Epsom Derby of 1843, his first race in public in late 1842 ended in an unpromising defeat, causing him to drift from 20-1 to rank outside 50-1 for the Derby.