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 Csikos.
It was during 1973, at the end of a tour to England with the Czikos that he defected aged just 16 when the lorry they were travelling in slowed down at a traffic light in Dover.
Turi had initially planned to defect in West Germany on an earlier part of the tour but the travelling party didn't slow down sufficiently for him to make the leap.
It was a horse called Vital that he rode at the Olympics Andrew carried him to his two most important individual triumphs at the 1987 World Cup qualifier at Olympia, where he won a Volvo car, and the 1990 British Jumping Derby at Hickstead.
It was near his home in Nagykoros on Easter Sunday 2003 that he sustained fatal injuries in a motor bike accident.