Midland's plays for the 1st leg of $5 million Grand 3 Challenge

Ok, let me start by saying that anyone winning the $5 million top prize for 1/ST Racing's Grand 3 Challenge is highly unlikely. Picking a superfecta straight is hard enough, but doing it for three straight races is beyond tough.

But getting that out of the way, a $100,000 guaranteed first prize for a free contest is pretty cool. To win, you have to score best picking the top four spots over three races, the Preakness, California Crown and Pegasus.

So essentially you make 12 picks, which are scored as follows:

- First, 50 points 

- Second, 25 points 

- Third, 10 points 

- Fourth, 3 points 

Unfortunately, there is no second prize, so you've got to be spot on, at least with the top two picks here so you don't fall too far behind.

Assuming there are a few thousand entries, one would have to imagine that you would need to get the winner correct in all three races to win. But before you fret about picking the winner two more times, keep in mind those other races are months away and could include a dominant favorite. You never know how the races come together. So hitting the exacta correctly here would be a great start.

My picks and strategy

I am going with Chad Brown's Tuscan Gold, who has been pointed to this race for some time now. He comes out of a productive Louisiana Derby. The winner, Catching Freedom, ran fourth in the Kentucky Derby, and the sixth-place finisher Antiquarian jumped up to win the Peter Pan last weekend.

For second, I will go with Bob Baffert's Imagination, who has the potential to be part of the pace and hang on for a long way. He's never finished worse than second and has finished second four out of six tries, so that seems like a logical pick.

Rounding out the picks, it seems there is less at stake as third and fourth earn only 10 and three points, respectively. For that reason I would keep these selections more logical, going with Catching Freedom in third and Mystik Dan in fourth. In my trifecta betting at the windows, I'll look for more of a price and lean on Just Steel to hit the trifecta.

If you can do well in the Preakness, it should be a fun wait to the California Crown to see what happens next!

Good luck in the contest - it's free and only takes about one minute to enter!