Jane Mangan’s William Hill blog: Aintree Grand National Festival Day Three selections

William Hill ambassador Jane Mangan is back to preview the third and final day of Aintree’s Grand National Festival, featuring the showpiece Grand National.

Aintree, Saturday

The opening race, the William Hill Top Price Guarantee Handicap Hurdle (1:20pm), is a difficult puzzle to solve, considering plenty of these are coming here from the Cheltenham Festival just three weeks ago. I like Act Of Authority, who finished second in the Martin Pipe behind Wodhooh, who ran a great race behind Lossiemouth in the William Hill Aintree Hurdle. He’s been put up five pounds for that effort and is stepping up to three miles for the first time. Conditional Lewis Saunders clearly gets on very well with him, and I think he can run a big race here.

The Grade One Mersey Novices’ Hurdle (1:55pm) looks a formality to me – Lulamba is a future star and it is his race to lose!

The Liverpool Hurdle (3:05pm) is a very interesting clash between the young pretender and the old establishment. Teahupoo disappointed me at Cheltenham; he couldn’t get the better of his older adversary Bob Olinger, and for that reason, I think this will go to Kitzbuhel. I was really impressed with his run at Gowran Park – he’s the young, improving horse. It’s Kitzbuhel to be the new kid on the block in the Liverpool Hurdle.

The Grand National (4:00pm) may be a different race than it was a couple of years ago, but I still think that class will prevail. Thirty-four runners go to post here and JP McManus is incredibly well represented, but I’m not sure he has the firepower to match Intense Raffles. He’s a horse who’s on the improve and, after winning the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse, he has been trained with this race in mind. His second behind Nick Rockett in the Bobbyjo Chase will have set him up perfectly for this, and I think he has all the attributes required to win the Grand National.

Dan Skelton will have had a long couple of days watching Willie Mullins notch up the sterling in the trainers’ championship. Hopefully, they will get some of it in their pockets back in the Grade One Maghull Novices’ Chase (5:00pm). L’Eau Du Sud was arguably produced a little too early at Cheltenham, and I’m not surprised to see the cheekpieces applied here. I expect Harry Skelton to wait as late as possible to make his move. He has the most pace in this race and, if delivered late, he’s my idea of the winner.

The bumper (5:35pm) rounds off proceedings of the Grand National Festival this year. It’s a typically competitive renewal, and I like a horse called Scope To Improve. He came to Naas after winning a point-to-point by 12 lengths with a lofty reputation. He went off favourite and didn’t disappoint. Being by Telescope, he will appreciate the drying ground and with Rachael Blackmore booked, it is no bad asset on your side. I think he can crown the three days with a victory in the last.