Tan's biography, released in 2006 and published by MPH Malaysia, is called Never Say I Assume!.
Early life
Tan Chin Nam was born on March 18, 1926[4] in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He was the sixth of twelve children.[5]
Thoroughbred horse racing
The principal owner for one of Australia's most successful horse trainers, Bart Cummings, Tan had a successful working relationship with Cummings for more than thirty years until the latter's death in 2015.
He owned at least a share in most of Cummings' well-known horses, including Think Big (co-owned with Queensland property developer Rick O'Sullivan and then joined by Tunku Abdul Rahman), winner of back-to-back Melbourne Cups in 1974 and 1975, as well as the multiple Group One winner, Saintly.[6] He was the owner of the 2008 Melbourne Cup winner Viewed, and is one of four thoroughbred owners to win the Melbourne Cup four Times.[7] He also owned 2009 and 2010 Cox Plate winner So You Think, and the winner of the 2009 Crown Oaks, Faint Perfume.
In 1975, Tan decided that there was great potential in expanding the game of chess in China. For the first eight years of the Cultural Revolution, chess had been prohibited, but in 1974 there was an easing of the ban and, together with some leading Chinese officials, Tan set-up the "Big Dragon Project", with the aim of having China dominate the chess world by 2010.[8] In 1982 he became the first FIDE Deputy President for Asia.[4] Tan was also president of the Malaysian chess federation for many decades.[9]
Tan sponsored the annual chess tournament Dato' Arthur Tan Malaysian Open, which takes place in Kuala Lumpur since 2004.[10]
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