Sports:
MELBOURNE, Sept 24 – Until now, no horse owner in the history of the rich Victorian Spring Racing Carnival has had three entries in the three ultimate Grade 1 events – and all three are hot favourites to win.
Malaysian tycoon gears up to land Aussie racing’s big three
September 24, 2010
Horse trainer Bart Cummings (L) and Malaysia’s Tan Chin Nam pose with the trophy after their racehorse Viewed won the Melbourne Cup at the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne in this file photo of November 4, 2008. – Reuters pic
That honour goes to Malaysian tycoon Datuk Tan Chin Nam.
And the races are the Melbourne Cup, Caulfield Cup and the Cox Plate.
Apart from the Big Three races, Datuk Tan also has a string of thoroughbreds featuring prominently in several other races here in the next seven weeks, and it would pay to keep an eye on them, Ducan Ramage, Datuk Tan’s manager in Australia said.
Ramage said the lucky Malaysian octogenarian, who was in a wheelchair when he was here last season, would be coming to Australia to witness the glorious racing moments along with his fellow octogenarian and master trainer Bart Cummings. They have been friends and racing collaboraters since the early 1970s.
Their four-year-old So You Think, set to go out favourite in the Melbourne Cup on November 2 at the Flemington Racecourse here, is rated by racing gurus as the best racehorse Cummings has ever trained and among Australia’s all-time top 10 gallopers.
So You Think has been brutal in just runs so far this season for wins in the Memsie Stakes and the Underwood States at Caulfield Racecourse last weekend. His crushing form has worried other owners and trainers.
Sponsored by Emirates Airline, the 2010 Melbourne Cup winner and placegetters will share in A$6 million (RM17.77 million) in prize money and $175,000 (RM541,530) in trophies, with the winning Cup horse receiving a lucrative A$3.6 million plus trophies for its owner, trainer, jockey, strapper and breeder.
Tan’s Dariana, the horse to chase stablemate So You Think last Saturday for a second placing, will be joined in the Caulfield Cup on October 16 by another Tan-owned star Faint Perfume, the Victorian Racing Club’s Oaks winner.
The Cox Plate is regarded as Australia’s premier weight-for-age horse race that has featured some of the best horses to have raced Down Under and a key event in the Australian racing calendar.
Datuk Tan has won an unprecedented four Melbourne Cups with Think Big (1974 and 1975), Saintly (1996) and Viewed (2008), all trained by Cummings. Think Big was part owned by Malaysia’s first Prime Minister Tengku Abdul Rahman, who came to receive the cup in 1975.
For the record Cummings has won 12 Melbourne Cups, seven Caulfield Cups, and four Cox Plates. – Bernama
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