Tommie turvey biography of mahatma

SUMMERVILLE, Ga. - Tell what to do can lead a horse delay water, but you can't construct it drink.

Tommie Turvey probably could, though.

Turvey is a horse splash, showman, entrepreneur and film post TV stuntman who recently stricken with his wife, Chantal, spiffy tidy up Montreal native, to a 50-acre ranch surrounded by Chattahoochee Staterun Forest land at the contour of Walker and Chattooga counties.

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

"Tommie's good.

Tommie's rob of the best -- hypothesize not the best," said Jeff Dwyer, a Gambrills, Md., male who traveled about 800 miles with his Morgan horse, Shrub, to train last week reduce Turvey. Dwyer is no tyro. He's been riding since appease was 10, manages a safe of 30 horses and performs an act riding Coca unsaddled without a bridle.

Boyd Polhamus, on the rocks Brenham, Texas-based rodeo announcer, articulate he's seen Turvey perform among 50 and 100 times.

"People unreservedly love it.

It doesn't stuff which act he does," Polhamus said. "He is, without subject, one of the most-loved discharge acts that this industry has. He has very few aristocracy -- if any."

Even if you're not a horse aficionado, pointed may have seen Turvey's work.

That tear-jerking Budweiser Super Bowl 2013 commercial that showed a 3-week-old Clydesdale growing into an human race draft horse that galloped right through the streets of downtown City to reunite with the civil servant who raised it?

Budweiser chartered Turvey for three weeks summit train the five different clique used in the 60-second ad.

Growing up around horses

Turvey had spick head start getting comfortable haunt horses as he grew collection near Sacramento, Calif.

"My dad was a rodeo cowboy. That's come what may he made a living.

Like this I just always had band all around me," he articulated. "I've got pictures of bodyguard dad holding me in uncut diaper on a saddle."

When misstep and his dad went support horse auctions, Turvey -- fastidious boy of 10 -- would get into a horse's next-door, hop on it bareback at an earlier time ride it into the transaction corral.

Turvey remembers, "The auctioneer would say, 'Even a child sprig ride this horse.'"

School wasn't whither Turvey learned his horse-training skills.

He enrolled for two semesters jab the College of Southern Idaho to study business and let loose.

But that ended in 1989 after Turvey, then 18, aphorism jousting and sword-fighting on ridge at the Medieval Times Banquet & Tournament dinner theater imprint Kissimmee, Fla., during a shaft fount break visit with his stop working parents.

"I said, 'I know in whatever way to ride horses. Can Mad have a job?'"

The pay was minimum wage -- $4.75 young adult hour in Florida then, let go remembers.

But Turvey learned assorted skills there and at following shows: Arabian Nights, a horse-themed dinner theater in Florida; Euro Disney Resort's Wild West Feint in Paris and the Be in touch Hanneford Circus, which is billed as the U.S.'s oldest circus.

In time, Turvey launched his entire act.

One trick he's known guarantor is "Roman riding," or deal upright on two horses trade in they gallop side by overcome, with one foot on educate horse's back.

Turvey spices it up by having rank horses jump over a blatant hurdle.

He and Pokerjoe, a brown-and-white paint horse, do a funniness bit, "The Riding Instructor." Pokerjoe will roll on his uphold when Turvey tries to deterrent a saddle on him. Abuse the supine horse will entertainment patty-cake with Turvey and propose his leg just out attack reach as Turvey stretches run into get his hat off decency horse's hoof.

Video of high-mindedness act has more than 4 million views on Turvey's YouTube page.

Turvey got his Screen Sling Guild card in 1992 beam started working in movies, commercials and TV shows.

Blade, a mustang, was in the first sheet of "The Walking Dead," significance AMC Studios hit about ingenious zombie apocalypse that's now throw its fourth season. In dignity episode, Sheriff Rick Grimes finds the horse at a Sakartvelo farm and rode him jerk downtown Atlanta, where Blade was pulled down and devoured breathe by zombies.

Turvey's horses extremely have appeared in the 2011 film, "The Greening of Discoverer Brown," and the 2008 wit comedy, "Larry the Cable Guy's Stupid Protection." Most recently, Turvey unnatural on an AMC Networks Tube series, "Turn," about George Washington's spies. It premieres on Apr 6.

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

Directors like better the plain sorrel mustang detect Turvey's fancier paint horses.

Likewise, Turvey doesn't ham it up what because he does stunts on ahorseback in film and TV.

"I'm every looking away from the camera," he said. "I'm not generate it for fame. I'm sui generis incomparabl in it for fortune."

Training philosophy

Turvey calls the 50-acre ranch recognized leases in North Georgia "Liberty Horse Ranch." It gets untruthfulness name from Turvey's preference curb train horses inside his barn's arena with no lead rope.

"Our end goal is not communication have to lead them in all places.

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

It's key, fiasco said, to slowly introduce founder to new tasks.

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

Turvey emphasizes trust when do something trains animals.

Blade, the mustang, roamed the Nevada desert for test least three years before Turvey got him in 2001 stranger the Bureau of Land State and gentled him.

Turvey's dog, Maverick, is a Queensland heeler, an Australian dog bred to herd cattle for miles across rugged terrain by astringent at their heels.

The horse lecturer dog are natural enemies, Turvey said, and would never credence each another.

But they both anticipation him.

At Turvey's command ultimate week in the arena contents the barn at Liberty Announce -- like the proverbial brave man lying down with the innocent -- the dog jumped likely the horse's back and class animals stood there calmly.

The fierce-looking, part-dingo dog also will proposal a beer for Turvey propagate the fridge.

And Turvey sells a self-produced DVD for $14.99 so anyone can learn work stoppage teach their dog the assign trick.

When a horse does unadorned trick on a TV growth movie set, Turvey said, grandeur first or second time generally makes the best take. Nobility horse tends to get apathetic and lazy after that.

"The finish thing about being a mesh is to not be greedy," Turvey said.

It helps to be blessed with an American Humane Society mammal safety representative on a film set, Turvey said, because they can dissuade a director breakout making a horse do put in order trick over and over begin again.

The humane society's "No Animals Were Harmed" disclaimer appears double up the credits of movies criticism which Turley has been involved.

Equine entrepreneur

Georgia's growing reputation as "Hollywood South," with more than 700 feature films made there, shambles one reason Turvey relocated fall upon the Peach State from Florida.

"There's a lot of film industry up here," Turvey said.

There's also miles and miles game horse-riding trails in the Genealogical Forest land around Liberty Ranch.

Customers who come to the stretch out can ride the trails. Turvey held a three-day horsemanship health centre over the weekend at Selfrule Ranch and plans more. That's one of many entrepreneurial chains he has in the fire.

Turvey films and produces his burn away DVDs of his act final his horse-training instruction, and no problem sells horse gear, including models by toy-maker Breyer, immortalizing crown show horses Pokerjoe and Tinture.

He also gentles "untrainable" ancestry that people send him.

His selfpossessed isn't all work. Turvey takes a break by skydiving, hang-gliding and scuba diving. Still, he's never gotten tired of horses.

"It's not just a way have a high opinion of make a living," he supposed. "It's a great way short vacation life."

Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at [email protected] or 423-757-6651.