Claude Duval Samuel Butler ("A Pindarick Ode"), John Gay ("The Beggar's Opera") and William Harrison Ainsworth ("Rookwood" and "Talbot Harland") to create the iconic image of the gentleman highwayman still beloved today. Mackie, Erin. "Rakes, Highwaymen, and Pirates. The Making of the Modern Gentleman in the Eighteenth Century" Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2009. Sharpe, James. "Dick Turpin: The Myth of the English highwayman". London: Profile, 2005. . Sugden, John. 'The Merry Dance of the Highwayman', "History Today", March 2017, vol. 67, no. 3, pp. 48–52. Sugden, John and Philip. "The Thief of Hearts: Claude Duval and the Gentleman Highwayman in Fact and Fiction".
Dick Turpin (horse) debut in the Greenham Stakes (a trial race for the 2000 Guineas) over seven furlongs at Newbury Racecourse and started the 8/1 third choice behind his stablemate Canford Cliffs and Arcano in a five-runner field. Ridden for the first time by Ryan Moore he tracked the front-running Canford Cliffs before taking the lead inside the final furlong and winning by half a length. In the 2000 Guineas over the Rowley Mile on 1 May Dick Turpin, a 16/1 outsider, took the lead three furlongs out but was overtaken inside the final furlong and beaten intoecond place by Makfi with Canford