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) 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