Horse painting auctioned in race to repay fraud victims

A 300-year-old oil painting of a Newmarket horse-racing scene – once owned by US fraudster Bernie Madoff – is set to fetch up to £64,000 at an auction in America.

The picture, Brocklesby Betty, with Jockey up at Newmarket, before her celebrated match with Ashridge Ball, 7 October, 1718, was painted by John Wootton, regarded as the the finest horse painter of his time.

It is thought he received £40 for the painting. In 1929, it fetched 100 guineas (£105) when it was sold at Christie’s by the sixth Lord Sherborne.

More recently it was acquired by Madoff, the American stockbroker who admitted using his wealth management business to defraud thousands of investors of billions of dollars. He was jailed for 150 years in 2009, the maximum allowed.

Madoff’s assets – including his large art collection – were seized, to be sold in an attempt to reimburse his creditors. So far, federal officials have raised $25 million – £16 million – in this way.

The painting is going under the hammer tomorrow at Christie’s Rockefeller Plaza salerooms in New York.

Wootton, who died in 1764, produced several Newmarket racing scenes, including one owned by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, entitled A Race On The Round Course, Newmarket.

Other Newmarket paintings by him adorn the stately homes of Longleat and Castle Howard.

The Dictionary of British Equestrian Artists describes him as “the first Englishman to paint horse portraits, considered to be the horse painter to the aristocracy for half a century.”

His works, often life-size, featured most of the famous racehorses of his time.

Brocklesby Betty was a chestnut filly foaled in 1711. She was bred at Brocklesby Park, Lincolnshire, and was a celebrated racing mare.

In 1718, she beat the Duke of Bridgewater’s Ashridge Ball in a match for 900 guineas.

At that time, Ashridge Ball was seen as the best horse in Britain.