Dick Turpin Dick Turpin Richard Turpin (bapt. 21 September 1705 – 7 April 1739) was an English highwayman whose exploits were romanticised following his execution in York for horse theft. Turpin may have followed his father's trade as a butcher early in his life but, by the early 1730s, he had joined a gang of deer thieves and, later, became a poacher, burglar, horse thief and killer. He is also known for a fictional overnight ride from London to York on his horse Black Bess, a story that was made famous by the Victorian novelist William Harrison Ainsworth almost 100 years after
Dick Turpin (horse) Cliffs in third, Xtension fourth and the favourite St Nicholas Abbey in sixth. Fifteen days later the colt was sent to France for the Poule d'Essai des Poulains at Longchamp finished second of the fifteen runners, beaten half a length by Lope de Vega with Buzzword, Siyouni and Poet's Voice unplaced. In the St James's Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot Dick Turpin finished runner-up in a Group 1 race for the third time in a row when he was beaten a length by Canford Cliffs with Siyouni, Beethoven and Makfi finishing behind. Richard Hughes resumed the ride when the colt