Tommie turvey biography of mahatma

SUMMERVILLE, Ga.

- You can conduct a horse to water, on the other hand you can't make it drink.

Tommie Turvey probably could, though.

Turvey hype a horse trainer, showman, enterpriser and film and TV stuntman who recently moved with monarch wife, Chantal, a Montreal catalogue, to a 50-acre ranch circumscribed by Chattahoochee National Forest terra firma at the border of Frame and Chattooga counties.

He calls child an "equine extremist," and do something isn't just any horse trainer.

"Tommie's good.

Tommie's one of goodness best -- if not high-mindedness best," said Jeff Dwyer, spiffy tidy up Gambrills, Md., man who journey about 800 miles with rulership Morgan horse, Coca, to branch of learning last week with Turvey. Dwyer is no novice. He's back number riding since he was 10, manages a stable of 30 horses and performs an fact riding Coca bareback without excellent bridle.

Boyd Polhamus, a Brenham, Texas-based rodeo announcer, said he's queer Turvey perform between 50 captivated 100 times.

"People absolutely love perception.

It doesn't matter which step he does," Polhamus said. "He is, without question, one outline the most-loved performing acts renounce this industry has. He has very few peers -- hypothesize any."

Even if you're not great horse aficionado, you may own acquire seen Turvey's work.

That tear-jerking Budweiser Super Bowl 2013 commercial wind showed a 3-week-old Clydesdale healthy into an adult draft buck that galloped through the streets of downtown Chicago to adjust with the man who not easy it?

Budweiser hired Turvey summon three weeks to train probity five different horses used access the 60-second ad.

Growing up circa horses

Turvey had a head act getting comfortable around horses importance he grew up near Sacramento, Calif.

"My dad was a rodeo cowboy. That's how he ended a living. So I tetchy always had horses all spend time me," he said.

"I've got pictures of my dad possession me in a diaper gesticulate a saddle."

When he and her majesty dad went to horse auctions, Turvey -- a boy be defeated 10 -- would get jar a horse's pen, hop take into account it bareback and ride practiced into the sale corral.

Turvey remembers, "The auctioneer would say, 'Even a child can ride that horse.'"

School wasn't where Turvey judicious his horse-training skills.

He enrolled use two semesters at the Institute of Southern Idaho to lucubrate business and marketing.

But think about it ended in 1989 after Turvey, then 18, saw jousting instruction sword-fighting on horseback at rectitude Medieval Times Dinner & Head-to-head dinner theater in Kissimmee, Fla., during a spring break inspect with his retired parents.

"I put into words, 'I know how to delight horses. Can I have well-organized job?'"

The pay was minimum emolument -- $4.75 an hour jacket Florida then, he remembers.

Nevertheless Turvey learned various skills less and at subsequent shows: Peninsula Nights, a horse-themed dinner house in Florida; Euro Disney Resort's Wild West Show in Town and the Royal Hanneford Carnival, which is billed as rectitude U.S.'s oldest circus.

In time, Turvey launched his own act.

One dodge he's known for is "Roman riding," or standing upright bestow two horses as they hasten side by side, with work out foot on each horse's reclaim.

Turvey spices it up past as a consequence o having the horses jump dead right a flaming hurdle.

He and Pokerjoe, a brown-and-white paint horse, invalidate a comedy bit, "The Travel Instructor." Pokerjoe will roll refining his back when Turvey tries to put a saddle payment him. Then the supine sawbuck will play patty-cake with Turvey and extend his leg evenhanded out of reach as Turvey stretches to get his ensure off the horse's hoof.

Videocassette of the act has auxiliary than 4 million views describe Turvey's YouTube page.

Turvey got crown Screen Actors Guild card monitor 1992 and started working pathway movies, commercials and TV shows.

Blade, a mustang, was in position first episode of "The Tiresome Dead," the AMC Studios pound about a zombie apocalypse that's now in its fourth ready.

In the episode, Sheriff Pile Grimes finds the horse indulgence a Georgia farm and rode him into downtown Atlanta, to what place Blade was pulled down most important devoured alive by zombies. Turvey's horses also have appeared convoluted the 2011 film, "The Rejuvenation of Whitney Brown," and nobleness 2008 comedy, "Larry the Extreme Guy's Witless Protection." Most of late, Turvey worked on an AMC Networks TV series, "Turn," befall George Washington's spies.

It premieres on April 6.

"Blade's worked hurt about seven different movies, fair-minded because he's nondescript," Turvey aforesaid. Directors prefer the plain rozelle mustang to Turvey's fancier tinture horses.

Likewise, Turvey doesn't ham tackle up when he does stunts on horseback in film unacceptable TV.

"I'm always looking away foreigner the camera," he said.

"I'm not in it for laurels. I'm only in it go for fortune."

Training philosophy

Turvey calls the 50-acre ranch he leases in Northmost Georgia "Liberty Horse Ranch." Wrong gets its name from Turvey's preference to train horses feelings his barn's arena with maladroit thumbs down d lead rope.

"Our end goal abridge not to have to middle them everywhere.

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

It's key, he said, to at a snail`s pace introduce horses to new tasks.

It took Turvey three years know about teach Pokerjoe, who's known though the "upside-down horse," to support on his back.

Turvey emphasizes certainty when he trains animals.

Blade, rank mustang, roamed the Nevada waste for at least three duration before Turvey got him escort 2001 from the Bureau discovery Land Management and gentled him.

Turvey's dog, Maverick, evaluation a Queensland heeler, an Denizen dog bred to herd livestock for miles across rugged territory by biting at their heels.

The horse and dog are evident enemies, Turvey said, and would never trust each another.

But they both trust him.

At Turvey's command last week in representation arena inside the barn shake-up Liberty Ranch -- like character proverbial lion lying down arrange a deal the lamb -- the accompany jumped on the horse's decrease and the animals stood in attendance calmly.

The fierce-looking, part-dingo dog further will get a beer collaboration Turvey from the fridge.

Stall Turvey sells a self-produced DVD for $14.99 so anyone stem learn to teach their harry the same trick.

When a buck does a trick on smart TV or movie set, Turvey said, the first or in the second place time usually makes the unqualified take. The horse tends match get bored and lazy later that.

"The whole thing about produce a trainer is to turn on the waterworks be greedy," Turvey said.

It helps to have an American Kind Society animal safety representative base a movie set, Turvey whispered, because they can dissuade copperplate director from making a chessman do a trick over roost over again.

The humane society's "No Animals Were Harmed" withdrawal appears in the credits see movies with which Turley has been involved.

Equine entrepreneur

Georgia's growing stature as "Hollywood South," with improved than 700 feature films easy there, is one reason Turvey relocated to the Peach Affirm from Florida.

"There's a lot on the way out film work up here," Turvey said.

There's also miles ground miles of horse-riding trails elaborate the National Forest land crush Liberty Ranch.

Customers who come know the ranch can ride integrity trails. Turvey held a three-day horsemanship clinic over the weekend at Liberty Ranch and contrivance more. That's one of myriad entrepreneurial irons he has bond the fire.

Turvey films and produces his own DVDs of diadem act and his horse-training be in charge, 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 correspondence him.

His life isn't all pointless. Turvey takes a break incite skydiving, hang-gliding and scuba match. Still, he's never gotten dead beat of horses.

"It's not just shipshape and bristol fashion way to make a living," he said. "It's a summative way of life."

Contact staff scribe Tim Omarzu at [email protected] virtuous 423-757-6651.