A Supreme Court blood feud.
The four-time runner-up to the world surfing title and star of the compelling is-he-gay-or-is-he-ain’t surf film Scream In Blue (he would later clarify he dreams about women not men), is locked in a Supreme Court battle over who owns a Sydney terrace house worth two million bucks.
Bondi-born Cheyne Horan, sixty years old and a pioneer of professional surfing, is fighting a “trailblazing female barrister” over who gets the spoils of a house owned by his grandparents, Albert and Alice Horan.
See, Cheyne and his brother Stephen claim their grandma wrote in her 1974 will that she wanted the joint to stay in the family. And, since Cheyne and his bro are her last surviving blood relatives, they get the cash from its sale.
They’re fighting the executer of the will, Sydney lawyer Janet Coombs, a member of the Order of Australia and daughter of Australia’s first-ever governor of the Reserve Bank. A gun, you might say.
It gets weird, as these things tend to do.
A couple of months before Alice died, alcoholic and riddled with liver cancer, two new wills were drawn up, leaving the property to the grandma’s other kid, Cheyne’s uncle John Horan.
John, who is described in court docs as brain injured, suffering a mental condition, violent and “incapable of looking after himself or his affairs”, died in 2016, leaving the now dilapidated house to a Christian charity that no longer exists.
Ms Coombs was named as the executor and trustee of John Horan’s will.
Cheyne and bro want the wills deemed invalid leaving ‘em the house.
Etc and ad infinitum.
Families, eh?
(Read this classic interview with Cheyne, by Matt Warshaw and via the Encylopedia of Surfing, here.)
That’s like 50 grand in US dollars right? 😛
Executor. I think.
My surf with Cheyne:
3rd ave Burleigh. Nice bank. Tiny waves but clean. Paddle out sit out the back. Everyone grumpy post work mood unable to get much. One old dude in an old torn suit on an old board, gets a ripper.
I get a wobbly shite barely-not-a-close out and it felt good, like all I was gonna get.
Look up the line as I’m paddling out, old dude is in the tightest tiniest barrel I’ve seen a man in. He looks at me, winks, and goes pow-pow with the double finger guns as he goes past. In a barrel the size of a pizza. Which he made it out of, hooting wildly.
Paddles back out past me to the peak… twas cheyne.
He then spent 45 mins chatting to me about feeling the rhythms of the waves in your belly as they roll past and how you use that to pick the one with the right energy for the right ride.
He was the only one ripping.
He went in and the waves stopped.
Dude can still surf… preternatural talent.
My Dad lived in one of those Shithole Terrace houses in the late 40s early 50s with a family or 2 on each floor , before they were all bought up by immigrants from the Med , in the 60s when Whitey moved to the new suburbs , who sold them back for millions to Yuppie Whitey Couples in the late 80s ….. The ones at Paddington were so deplorable at the time my dad lived there , and had such a bad reputation ,that he used to say he lived a few blocks away in Woollahra …. Suggested reading Ruth Park’s “The Harp in the South “
The best quote ever was from Barton:
If i’d lost 4 world titles i’d be way more fucked up than he is!
Scream in blue is a great fillum, a fascinating character study, a big question over whether he could have won without the star fin, etc
Is this chick Nugget Coombes’ daughter? Surely she has enough.
No more, please.
Studying for 750 minutes. To write 750 words. Followed by taking a walk of 750 meters. Then 750 pushups.
I’m taking everything with me in my “Snapper Rock” coffin.
Money and Sydney, no man needs either and happiness is better found elsewhere
Yeah, two bricks for a dilapidated joint twenty clicks from the beach is very Sydney.
Sounds about right for a monthly in Manley.
All the refos love it here.
Kinda proves Turts point though!
All the immigrants are the ones driving up the demand, not so much now.
haha I thought ya boy eyebrows “stopped the boats”
Borders closed! We can’t even leave!!
We take a fuk ton of refos and immigrants
They just gotta do it by a few rules and regs.
The ones on the boats deserve nothing as they hop over a dozen countries with their money, then throw away their ID,
While the poor refugees wait in camps and get screwed by these cheats
We are a benelovent country that just wants to be able to remain that way by a few regulations.
Hard not to agree. We’ve got the room, it’s a nice joint and we are nice guys.. Except I’ve always though if someone makes it in a boat they earned it. That said the skipping over people in camps sux. Still, those camps just keep growing so a boat probably looks pretty good by comparison.
I would try it too, for sure.
But only when Labor is in power, and be prepared to drown.
It’s a gamble like most things, but if they’re guaranteed entry by boat then again you reward people cause of their wealth
Shithouse situation to find yourself in to be sure. If it was a decision between rotting in a UN tent city, dodge bombs at home, or pay a scumbag smuggler to attempt escape, I’d take that shot.
Me too
If I had the funds who wouldn’t.
Funny how generally only the countrys that accept refos cope the ctitcism and not the shit holes they flee.
Or countrys that just say fuk off
yeah Bex you tell em …..what was is again those scum convicts and their masters……now its refugees and immigrants…..benevolent country , you have no treaty with the indigenous people , so until there is one…maybe you are just visiting pommies!
I reckon you’ll be good at politics, talk in riddles a lot don’tcha?
David Williamson’s Play , Emerald City comes to mind ….
I bet he comes second
Challenges the decision four times.
I agree when they say he was riding the wrong boards…and that it made a huge difference
He could have finished runner up at least two or three more times
Cheyne was clearly the best surfer in the world from 80 to 84. Should have one at least one title, if not multiple.
Saw photo of you online a day ago. Looked like south side of Huntington in a red wetsuit. 1980. Siick!
PT has always said , if Cheyne would have stayed with the Bronze Aussies , he would have happily thrown the Semifinal at Sunset in 79 , which would have given Cheyne the Title that year and not MR …. You can’t take the Pro out of ProSurfing ?
Lawyers will bleed them out, and then they’ll have to sink a fortune into the wreck. Off the adversaries, and torch it!
Like the old days.
Yep, the lawyers and real estate slime (both) will be the only winners here. Super sad and happens all the time.
Yep, talk is cheap until you hire a lawyer.