Claude Duval legend, including claims of alchemy, gambling, and much womanising. He is reported to haunt the Holt Hotel along the A4260 (Oxford Road) in Oxfordshire, a hotel where he spent many nights when it was a small coaching inn. Recent historians have reappraised the legacy of Duval. James Sharpe in "Dick Turpin" regarded Duval as the most significant figure in the shaping of the highwayman myth. John and Philip Sugden's "The Thief of Hearts" reconstructs what is known of the historical Duval, using much fresh evidence, and shows that the traditions about the Frenchman were used by such literary luminaries as
Dick Turpin (horse) Dick Turpin (horse) Dick Turpin (foaled 30 April 2007) is an Irish-bred, British-trained Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. In three years of racing he won nine of his twenty races, showing consistent top-class form over distances of around one mile. As a two-year-old in 2009 he won the first four of his six races including the Richmond Stakes and the Tattersalls Ireland Sale Stakes. In the following year he won the Greenham Stakes and the Prix Jean Prat, finished second in the 2000 Guineas, Poule d'Essai des Poulains and St James's Palace Stakes and ran third in the Prix de la