Get real! An intriguing Lincoln puzzle is still the perfect way to start the British Flat season

Age and tradition really do have their place – take it from someone who has been a grandfather for a whole week now.

On Lincoln day ignore those complaining about the supposedly low-key start to the British Flat season, a chorus which seems to have been heard almost since it first became a spring landmark 170 years ago.

Get real (I did say I was now a grandad). Day one is never the big one. The football season does not start with the FA Cup final. Pomp and Circumstance brings the house down on the last night of the Proms, not the first.