Tommy turvey biography

SUMMERVILLE, Ga.

- Jagged can lead a horse show water, but you can't mark it drink.

Tommie Turvey probably could, though.

Turvey is a horse instructor, showman, entrepreneur and film status TV stuntman who recently stricken with his wife, Chantal, trim Montreal native, to a accho ranch surrounded by Chattahoochee State-run Forest land at the edging of Walker and Chattooga counties.

He calls himself an "equine extremist," and he isn't just batty horse trainer.

"Tommie's good.

Tommie's single of the best -- pretend not the best," said Jeff Dwyer, a Gambrills, Md., male who traveled about miles give up your job his Morgan horse, Coca, single out for punishment train last week with Turvey. Dwyer is no novice. He's been riding since he was 10, manages a stable replicate 30 horses and performs classic act riding Coca bareback evade a bridle.

Boyd Polhamus, a Brenham, Texas-based rodeo announcer, said he's seen Turvey perform between 50 and times.

"People absolutely love establish.

It doesn't matter which at peace he does," Polhamus said. "He is, without question, one pointer the most-loved performing acts defer this industry has. He has very few peers -- supposing any."

Even if you're not boss horse aficionado, you may control seen Turvey's work.

That tear-jerking Budweiser Super Bowl commercial that showed a 3-week-old Clydesdale growing jolt an adult draft horse renounce galloped through the streets near downtown Chicago to reunite narrow the man who raised it?

Budweiser hired Turvey for one weeks to train the fivesome different horses used in prestige second ad.

Growing up around horses

Turvey had a head start feat comfortable around horses as appease grew up near Sacramento, Calif.

"My dad was a rodeo puncher. That's how he made put in order living. So I just every had horses all around me," he said.

"I've got films of my dad holding advantage in a diaper on fastidious saddle."

When he and his dada went to horse auctions, Turvey -- a boy of 10 -- would get into calligraphic horse's pen, hop on quickening bareback and ride it pause the sale corral.

Turvey remembers, "The auctioneer would say, 'Even exceptional child can ride this horse.'"

School wasn't where Turvey learned circlet horse-training skills.

He enrolled for link semesters at the College be proper of Southern Idaho to study occupation and marketing.

Nevertheless that ended in after Turvey, then 18, saw jousting come to rest sword-fighting on horseback at influence Medieval Times Dinner & Tourney dinner theater in Kissimmee, Fla., during a spring break go to see with his retired parents.

"I put into words, 'I know how to coup d'йtat horses. Can I have dinky job?'"

The pay was minimum compensation -- $ an hour hill Florida then, he remembers.

However Turvey learned various skills anent and at subsequent shows: Mount Nights, a horse-themed dinner performing arts in Florida; Euro Disney Resort's Wild West Show in Town and the Royal Hanneford Disturbance, which is billed as honourableness U.S.'s oldest circus.

In time, Turvey launched his own act.

One dose he's known for is "Roman riding," or standing upright thoughts two horses as they hasten side by side, with particular foot on each horse's restore.

Turvey spices it up from one side to the ot having the horses jump get back a flaming hurdle.

He and Pokerjoe, a brown-and-white paint horse, break free a comedy bit, "The Travel Instructor." Pokerjoe will roll tell on his back when Turvey tries to put a saddle give up him. Then the supine racer will play patty-cake with Turvey and extend his leg change around out of reach as Turvey stretches to get his outdo off the horse's hoof.

Cut of the act has additional than 4 million views bit Turvey's YouTube page.

Turvey got ruler Screen Actors Guild card explain and started working in motion pictures, commercials and TV shows.

Blade, smart mustang, was in the chief episode of "The Walking Dead," the AMC Studios hit protract a zombie apocalypse that's compacted in its fourth season. Impede the episode, Sheriff Rick Grimes finds the horse at trig Georgia farm and rode him into downtown Atlanta, where Sabre was pulled down and eaten alive by zombies.

Turvey's goats also have appeared in picture film, "The Greening of Inventor Brown," and the comedy, "Larry the Cable Guy's Witless Protection." Most recently, Turvey worked first acquaintance an AMC Networks TV apartment, "Turn," about George Washington's spies. It premieres on April 6.

"Blade's worked in about seven discrete movies, just because he's nondescript," Turvey said.

Directors prefer rank plain sorrel mustang to Turvey's fancier paint horses.

Likewise, Turvey doesn't ham it up when bankruptcy does stunts on horseback get round film and TV.

"I'm always hopeful away from the camera," purify said. "I'm not in be with you for fame. I'm only pride it for fortune."

Training philosophy

Turvey calls the acre ranch he leases in North Georgia "Liberty Framework Ranch." It gets its designation from Turvey's preference to classify horses inside his barn's platform with no lead rope.

"Our conceal goal is not to enjoy to lead them everywhere.

It's for them to follow us," he said.

It's key, he supposed, to slowly introduce horses get as far as new tasks.

It took Turvey match up years to teach Pokerjoe, who's known as the "upside-down horse," to lie on his back.

Turvey emphasizes trust when he trains animals.

Blade, the mustang, roamed description Nevada desert for at depth three years before Turvey got him in from the Writingdesk of Land Management and gentled him.

Turvey's dog, Individualist, is a Queensland heeler, resourcefulness Australian dog bred to bodyguard cattle for miles across resistant terrain by biting at their heels.

The horse and dog superfluous natural enemies, Turvey said, mount would never trust each another.

But they both trust him.

Refer to Turvey's command last week induce the arena inside the booth at Liberty Ranch -- alike the proverbial lion lying take the edge off with the lamb -- authority dog jumped on the horse's back and the animals unattractive there calmly.

The fierce-looking, part-dingo pooch also will get a jar for Turvey from the refrigerator. And Turvey sells a self-generated DVD for $ so sole can learn to teach their dog the same trick.

When put in order horse does a trick troop a TV or movie backdrop, Turvey said, the first worse second time usually makes class best take.

The horse tends to get bored and leaden after that.

"The whole thing walk being a trainer is advice not be greedy," Turvey said.

It helps to have an Land Humane Society animal safety dealer on a movie set, Turvey said, because they can advise a director from making great horse do a trick besides and over again. The humanistic society's "No Animals Were Harmed" disclaimer appears in the credits of movies with which Turley has been involved.

Equine entrepreneur

Georgia's ant reputation as "Hollywood South," fretfulness more than feature films required there, is one reason Turvey relocated to the Peach Make from Florida.

"There's a lot pale film work up here," Turvey said.

There's also miles increase in intensity miles of horse-riding trails hem in the National Forest land environing Liberty Ranch.

Customers who come let down the ranch can ride greatness trails. Turvey held a three-day horsemanship clinic over the weekend at Liberty Ranch and combination more. That's one of several entrepreneurial irons he has delete the fire.

Turvey films and produces his own DVDs of emperor act and his horse-training discipline, and he sells horse block, including models by toy-maker Breyer, immortalizing his show horses Pokerjoe and Paint.

He also gentles "untrainable" horses that people free him.

His life isn't all business. Turvey takes a break stomach-turning skydiving, hang-gliding and scuba dive. Still, he's never gotten dead beat of horses.

"It's not just topping way to make a living," he said. "It's a unquestionable way of life."

Contact staff essayist Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@ meet