Legendary racehorse Cotherstone comes home to the Bowes Museum

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.

But as 1843 dawned, Cotherstone became a horse transformed. Scott’s brother, Bill, his jockey, said he was the best colt he had ever ridden, and Bowes began backing him with bets. He also increased the security at the training yard in Malton so that no one could nobble the horse.

Cotherstone won his first three races of the season with increasingly impressive performances so that on the morning of the Epsom Derby he was 13-8 favourite out of the 23 runners. Jockey Scott kept him out of trouble until taking him to the front a quarter-of-a-mile and riding to the line, easily seeing off the only challenger which was believed to be a four-year-old ringer in a race for three-year-olds.

The prize money was £4,250 but Bowes had bets worth £30,000 on the horse – worth £3.9m in today’s values, according to the Bank of England Inflation Calculator.

View of the dining room at Streatlam Castle with its armorial ceiling. The castle was built in 1718 by Sir William Bowes on the site of a 15th Century castle

As well as his castle and estate in Teesdale, Bowes owned the coal-rich Gibside in north Durham, making him fabulously wealthy, but that afternoon in Epsom, he earned as much from his horses as he did in a year from his land.

The only downside on the day was that the homing pigeons released from Epsom bearing the news of the great victory got lost, and so there were no celebrations in Malton.

Cotherstone won three of his four races in the remainder of 1843, winning £13,790.

The one second place was the St Leger at Doncaster when jockey Scott was injured and a replacement, Frank Butler, took the saddle. Cotherstone led until the final yards when Prizefighter pulled ahead and won by a short head.

There was fury in Cotherstone’s camp, although there was also a very strong suggestion that jockey Butler had “pulled” the horse – stopped him from charging to the line – under the influence of John Gully, of Durham, who had heavily backed Prizefighter.

Gully was a fabulous character. He was a bankrupt butcher from Bath who became a bare knuckle prizefighter and bookmaker to the Prince of Wales. In 1812, he won £40,000 on a single wager and invested the proceeds in Hetton Colliery, to the north-east of Durham city. As his winnings mounted, he sunk more money into Durham pits – Thornley, Wingate, Trimdon – and he lived at Cocken Hall, near Finchale Abbey. His main home, though, was Ackworth Park, near Pontefract, where he was the MP, and he died in another of his properties – 7, North Bailey in Durham – in 1863.

Not, of course, that John Bowes could really complain about underhand tactics on the turf – he had to lie low in France for more than a year to avoid being prosecuted over an allegedly illegal gambling practice.

Before the start of the 1844 season, Bowes sold Cotherstone for stud to Lord Spencer, and the horse broke down in its first race at Goodwood and never ran again.

In Cotherstone’s brief career, he had won eight of his 11 races. He was highly regarded, although perhaps West Australian, who won the 2,000 Guineas, the Derby, the St Leger and the Ascot Gold Cup, in the early 1850s was the best horse Bowes bred at Streatlam.

The Bowes Museum has had a painting of Cotherstone, but it’s a rather static stable view. The new view has the horse leaping forward with trainer Scott, known as “the wizard of the north”, looking on. It is by the celebrated sporting artist Henry Thomas Alken, and has been acquired thanks to the generosity of the late Margaret Bright, who was headmistress of Polam Hall for a couple of years from 1984.

• With thanks to Jonathan Peacock.