Joe Turi

Show jumper for Britain and Hungary

Jozsef Turi, show jumper: born Nagykoros, Hungary 18 November 1956; died 30 April 2003.

Jozsef Turi – or Joe as he was known during the time when he competed for the British show jumping team – may sometimes have wondered whether the British press had gone overboard in recording his colourful background. But, thanks to his own sharp wit, he learnt to go along with the irresistible story of how he had defected from his native Hungary by jumping off a lorry. There were indeed times when he embellished it with some fanciful highlights.

Born in Hungary in 1956, Turi developed a boyhood passion for horses. His father had wanted him to train as an engineer; instead he went to work for a troupe of Hungarian trick riders known as the Czikos. It was during 1973, at the end of a tour to England with the Czikos, that he made his famous leap. Turi's original intention had been to defect in Germany on the outward journey, but he had waited in vain for the train that was carrying the troupe to slow down. In the end he made his leap towards British citizenship when the lorry stopped at traffic lights near Dover.

Turi was 16, virtually penniless and he spoke scarcely a word of English. He was, however, tough and resilient. The first job he landed in England was at a riding school, where he was a paid a meagre £5 a week. He then switched to a racing yard in Newmarket, where he received the more handsome sum of £21 a week, from which he saved £10. A year later he used his savings to buy a horse, intending to turn it into a top show jumper.

The horse was kept in stables owned by the manager of the General Chip Company, for whom Turi was then working. Six months later, to Turi's great distress, the horse escaped from this Essex yard and was killed on the road. It was, however, through this sad incident that he met Michael Bullman, who then owned the yard next door. Bullman promised Turi that he would buy him another horse to ride; in the end he acquired some world-class mounts for him, notably Vital and Kruger.

For Bullman, who had set out to do an act of kindness, Turi proved a quite extraordinary find. He not only had a way with horses, which must have been developed during his time with the Czikos, he also proved to be a naturally gifted rider who was able to pick up the finer points of show jumping simply by watching the leading exponents in action. Initially his trick riding routine was used as a means of gaining entry to some shows – "I'd stand on my head for a couple of hours if that would get me there," he said. But he soon made it purely on his talent as a show jumper.

Turi wore his ambition not just on his sleeve, but on his expressive face and in the torrent of words which poured out at press conferences without him pausing to edit them. There were some lovely moments. "I'm just a poor Hungarian, a Muppet on a string, if that's the right way to put it," he said (amid much mirth) in 1987, when talking about the difficulty of getting onto certain British teams.

Nobody could deflect him from his indomitable sense of purpose. Harvey Smith, who once suggested in print that his temperament might be suspect, received an immediate reposte when Turi – having proved his own point by winning a class at Hickstead – bowed towards Smith and, wiping his brow with heavy irony, said: "I can't stand the pressure Harvey." When he was chosen for the 1988 British Olympic team in Seoul, Turi's smile was ecstatic. "I never dreamt it was possible when I came here 15 years ago that I would one day ride for the British Olympic team," he said.

The team was a disappointing sixth in Korea, but the following year Turi had one of his proudest moments when he and Kruger were part of the British quartet that won the European championship. Vital, his Olympic mount, carried him to his two most important individual triumphs: the 1987 World Cup qualifier at Olympia, where he won a Volvo car, and the 1990 British Jumping Derby at Hickstead.

There was, however, a price to pay for his success. Because he had defected, Turi was unable to return to his homeland until the repressive Communist rule was ended. His father died before that happened; although he was reunited with his mother, she never had the opportunity to see him compete before her own death.

Having ridden in some 34 Nations Cups for Britain between 1986 and 1995, Turi eventually returned home on a permanent basis and, still with the invaluable assistance of Bullman's lovely horses, he began riding for his native country. His hopes of resurrecting Hungary's once proud standing in show jumping were cut short on Easter Sunday, when he sustained fatal injuries in a motor bike accident. He died 11 days later in a Hungarian hospital.

Genevieve Murphy