Horses and chess

An exclusive photo: Dato Tan Chin Nam reading the article "At full gallop" from today's Bizweek pullout in The Star

I received a call yesterday: "Seng Sun, Dato is in Penang this weekend and he wonders whether you can come to see him today or tomorrow." Of course I can, I told his secretary, "but please make it tomorrow." So at noon today, I turned up at the hotel to meet him. He was in a very jovial and relaxed mood. Who wouldn't be, when his horse had won the Melbourne Cup earlier this month? But we weren't talking much about horses. It would be outside my league talking about horses with a man that had won this Cup for an unprecedented four times in 1974, 1975, 1996 and 2008. Anyway, there's an interesting article written about Dato Tan Chin Nam in The Star's Bizweek. You should read it if only to gain an insight into the world of horse racing. No, we were talking about the state of chess in Malaysia, how our team was faring in Dresden at the Chess Olympiad. I was very frank with him. Let me put it another way: I was diplomatically brutal. And he agreed. Anyway, we were also bandying about with an idea for chess promotion. It'll be a few weeks before I'll write about it in my column.