Dean Turley

Olympic and Commonwealth Games rifle shooter Dean Turley grew up in Broken Hill, where the surrounding desert and bush provides a natural rifle range. With a shooting ability like Turley’s, and a rifle, you can easily shoot a rabbit or two for dinner. ‘Everyone shoots in Broken Hill’ he says. Which may not be exactly the case, but not everyone who does shoot in Broken Hill has Turley’s eye and aptitude. He was 20 before he first went to the rifle club for fun. He soon went back to shoot more targets, and kept going back until he was competition shooting. 

The result was a twenty-year career as a competition shooter, working as a baker in between to finance his training at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra. Just three rifle shooting training sessions can cost more than $150, and Dean Turley’s success as an elite shooter was fully supported by his partner Deborah Lowe, a school teacher, who believed in and invested in his natural ability. 

In the 1990s, that ability led to 12 Australian titles, 2 New Zealand championships, 3 Oceania Games, and a bronze medal at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton Canada for an event called 50m Rifle Prone Pairs. In 2000 he found himself on the reserve team for the Sydney Olympic Games. 

When Turley decided to retire from competition shooting, another sport – that neither he nor his partner Deborah had any background in – caught their eye: greyhound racing. One day they were watching the races on television and the next they had their first dog, Lady Blue Bear. Like Turley, she had a natural aptitude and won 10 races without any training.   

Dean and Deborah left Broken Hill for the Northern Rivers in 2003 where they bought 100 acres and where they now breed and race greyhounds.

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