The Grand National returns this weekend, with horse racing fans preparing for one of the biggest events on the UK sporting calendar.
Huge sums have been placed ahead of the showpiece, with the number of bets only likely to climb ahead of Saturday's race. There is a busy schedule throughout the build-up at Aintree, with a 4pm start time pencilled in for the main event.
The John McConnell-trained Mahler Mission is the favourite, with last year's winner Corach Rambler also hotly tipped. But not everyone will be trying to outsmart the bookies and find value in the market.
Instead, plenty of punters prefer to go down the sweepstake route, and Mirror Sport has got your back. A sweepstake can allow fans to have a horse to cheer for, with something on the line.
You can print out out sweepstake kit and then cut out the names of all the horses taking part in the Grand National. Then once you've set an entry fee, everyone picks a name out of a hat.
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Whether you're playing with friends, family or colleagues, it's up to you to decide how many prizes to hand out and how much it costs to enter. You might want to make it free, with little more than bragging rights on the line - it's entirely down to you.
All you need to do is download our sweepstake kit before the race on Saturday. Once you've done that, you can decide whether to make it a winner-take-all game or pay out for multiple places - if everyone is drawing horses at random then all of you will have an equal chance of winning.
Online generator
If you would rather save some paper, then Mirror Sport also has an online generator for your sweepstake. It's easy to use and will save as lot of hassle.
You simply need to enter the names of everyone involved and the gadget will assign a horse to them. If fewer than 34 people are involved it assigns multiple horses to participants.
Check out our free online generator.
How can I watch the Grand National?
The Grand National will be broadcast live on ITV, with a number of other races from Aintree also being shown by the broadcaster. This means those fans who weren't able to snap up tickets to be there in person can still follow the action as it happens. The race gets underway at 4pm.
Mirror Sport prediction
A major talking point has been the paucity of the UK challenge but they still have the favourite in Corach Rambler, who, barring accidents, is hard to see being out of the frame given he ran his best race ever, on the figures, last time out in the Gold Cup.
That may have just taken the edge off him, though, and the much fresher Mahler Mission is taken to come out on top for John McConnell. He ran a blinder at Newbury when last seen, is a safe jumper and stays well.
I Am Maximus is a hard one to weigh up as he is extremely talented but sometimes does his best not to win. He may sulk but if he takes to it has the class to go close while stablemate Adamantly Chosen is more difficult to weigh up and looks overpriced.
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