Born in 1930 at the Lagoon near Bathurst and one of a huge clan of Turnbulls, Tony learned his craft as a teenager on his uncle Cap's (Albert J Turnbull) horses.

 

 He won races on country tracks and at Harold Park prior to night trotting, he trained and drove many good horses in his sixty years of competition. Without doubt his best horse was champion pacer Hondo Grattan who won 58 of his 119 starts, including Inter Dominion titles as a four and five year old in 1973 and 1974 and a Miracle Mile in 1975.

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 Winning the NSW Training Premierships on eight occasions Tony was also named Australian leading trainer six times. In 1976 he won the NSW Drivers Premiership a feat he was to replicate on another ten times over the next twelve years and finished up with 2,884 career wins as a driver.