Motion, Brown Hold Two Seats in the Dinner Party

Trainer Graham Motion and  Eclipse Award-winning conditioner Chad Brown each have two horses for the May 15 $250,000 Dinner Party Stakes (G2T) at Pimlico. The Dinner Party, formerly the Dixie, goes as race 12 and precedes the day's main event, the Preakness Stakes (G1).

Motion's pair for the 1 1/16-mile race are Alex G. Campbell Jr.'s homebred Bye Bye Melvin  and Calumet Farm's English Bee . Both are accomplished over the Pimlico turf.

Brown's pair are grade 1-placed Sacred Life  for Michael Dubb, Madaket Stables, Wonder Stables, and Bethlehem Stables, and rising star Kuramata , a homebred 4-year-old by Australia  for Peter Brant.

Bye Bye Melvin, a son of champion Uncle Mo  , made his 4-year-old debut in an open, third-level allowance at the Dinner Party trip April 15 at Keeneland. It was his first race since finishing third by a length last fall in the Bryan Station Stakes over the same course. Last year on the Oct. 3 Preakness undercard Bye Bye Melvin was pipped by Don Juan Kitten  in the one-mile James W. Murphy Stakes at Old Hilltop. Out of grade 1 winner Karlovy Vary , Bye Bye Melvin is 3-3-2 in 12 starts.

"He's been very consistent," Motion said of the Saranac Stakes (G3T) winner. "He's a very hard-trying, hard-knocking horse. He's been thrown all sorts of different ground to run on."

"He's a big, strong, gorgeous horse. I think this will hopefully be a stepping-stone to some longer races this summer."

English Bee, by Calumet Farm stallion English Channel  , makes his first start of the year in the Dinner Party. In May 2019 he won the Murphy before adding the grade 3 New Kent County Virginia Derby (G3T).

"We gave him a freshening over the winter. I felt like he'd been going at it for a long time without a break," Motion said. "He went to the farm at Calumet and Jack Sisterson got him started for me, and he came back to me here in the beginning of the year."

Sisterson will saddle Calumet's Flying Scotsman , who is also a 5-year-old by English Channel, in the Dinner Party.

For Brown, who won the 2016 Dinner Party with Takeover Target , Kuramata will be making just his fourth career start and first in a stakes. Sacred Life was a group 3 winner in France but has yet to break through in a graded stakes in North America. Winner of the 1 1/16-mile Oceanport Stakes last summer at Monmouth Park, the 6-year-old son of Siyouni  ran third by 2 1/2 lengths in the Maker's Mark Mile (G1T) April 9 at Keeneland in his first race in seven months.

Also exiting the Maker's Mark Mile, where he was seventh, is Skychai Racing and Sand Dollar Stable's Somelikeithotbrown , second to Factor This  in last fall's Dinner Party. Trained by Mike Maker, the 5-year-old son of Big Brown   is a graded winner on two surfaces, taking the 2019 Jeff Ruby Steaks (G3) on the all-weather at Turfway Park and the Bernard Baruch Handicap (G2T) over the Saratoga Race Course turf last summer.