Five-day festival and Altior set the bile rolling on Twitter

The twenties got off to a hairy start, what with the burning, the assassinating, the missile-launching and the widespread ill-feeling, fuelled by the rising veganism and the temporary teetotalitarianism. And then there’s the hinting at a five-day Cheltenham Festival.

That's no surprise. Every racing year begins with Cheltenham speculation. In Scotland our first foot (trad., look it up) who visits on January 1 no longer just brings a lump of coal – it’s wrapped in the Markets page from the Racing Post.

About five years ago I wrote advocating a five-day festival, in hypothetical, slightly tongue-in-cheek mode and it attracted quite a lot of noxious grot on Twitter. But I hadn’t been appointed chairman at Cheltenham, so it got nothing like the reaction to the Martin St Quinton interview on ITV Racing.