Aintree day one tips: 12/1, 11/1 and 3/1 picks from Kevin Blake

The Grand National Festival gets underway at Aintree on Thursday, kicking off with four Grade Ones, and expert pundit Kevin Blake has three fancies on the card.

The Grand National Festival at Aintree is here. After what seemed an endless winter, the rain has dried up and the taps have been turned on in no uncertain terms with Aintree putting down plenty of water to try and keep the tracks as soft as they'd like them to be. It promises to be another great few days of action and after this column had a very good time of it during the Cheltenham Festival, I'll hope to repeat that this week.