Happy memories and ancient rivalries are to the fore as the good old boys take over the stage once more

We start each year with a day in celebration of our old boys. It's time for the Unibet Veterans' Final at Sandown, while the feature race at Wincanton is also a veterans' chase, aimed at horses who retain just a smidgen more speed than the ones we'll be watching at Esher.

The word 'old' doesn't really belong in a discussion of racehorses, of course. Even the oldest runner in these races was only just born at the time of the London Olympics, so those of us for whom that seems about five minutes ago have to accept that these alleged veterans are, in fact, youngsters – just not quite as young as the ones in the other races.

Evergreen as they may be, and still enviably close to their athletic prime, these horses deserve to be honoured for long service and sustained hard work. Good old Chambard (the 'good old' prefix is completely acceptable whenever a veteran is mentioned) made his racecourse debut more than nine years ago, in a Flat race at Argentan, west of Paris.