“Horse heaven” developing on the Sunshine Coast

By Jordan Gerrans

It has been described as “horse heaven.”

Hidden away just north-west of Noosa on the Sunshine Coast, Michael Sherrin’s Cooroibah property is slowly building into a perfect place to pre-train and then produce up-and-coming racehorses.

Businessman Sherrin, of Sherrin Rentals and Sherrin motor car racing, has dipped his toes into the racing industry over the last six years.

The picturesque property, which houses a lake big enough to water-ski in, includes facilities and stables for gallopers that are on the way to the pre-trainers, horses having a spell from the racecourse and mares that are in foal.

“The veterinarian who comes here to see the horses calls it 'horse heaven,' he jokes that he would like to come back as a horse to live here,” Sherrin said.

“It would be a perfect place for a horse, why wouldn’t you want to be here?

“Up here at Noosa, just off the lake, it is beautiful.”

The 71-year-old Sherrin and wife Terry-Ann first got involved with horses while living on a farming property down at Dubbo in New South Wales and had their gallopers with the Hulbert training team in Brisbane.

It started off with Kembla Heights, who became the dam of Saga Miss – a winner of five from 23 races in Sherrin’s orange and red striped colours.

“From then, we then started to develop this property and we thought what a lovely property it is to turn it into a horse centre,” Sherrin said.

In 2021, the Sherrin team boast gallopers like 2021 Stradbroke Handicap contender Apache Chase, who this weekend is a leading chance in the $7.5m Golden Eagle, and eight-time winner Red Chase, who are both based at Eagle Farm with trainer Desleigh Forster.

“We have developed it; we have paddocks there where horses can come from back from a spell,” Sherrin said of his property.

“We are developing up the top for our mares, we bought three more mares at the Magic Millions sale just recently who are all in foal; two to So You Think and one to Written Tycoon, so we are looking forward to them dropping.

“We are developing into a pre-training centre, not too serious, before they head back to Desleigh.”

Owner-breeder Sherrin paid $50,000 for Apache Chase at the 2019 Gold Coast Sales and while his family have raced many horses over the years, the gun four-year-old is looming as their best yet.

On top of Red Chase and Apache Chase, the Sherrins have three two-year-olds coming in that are not far away as well as a couple of yearlings that will soon go to pre-training and then to Forster later this year.

“We are looking forward to seeing them race, as well,” he said.