Based with Graham Motion at the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md., English Bee has raced twice nearby at Pimlico Race Course, where he earned his first stakes victory in the one-mile James W. Murphy on grass on the undercard of the 2019 Preakness Stakes (G1). Later that year the son of turf champion English Channel would go on to win the Virginia Derby and Parx Derby in successive starts.

Since then, English Bee has run 19 times with two wins and has been beaten by five lengths or less in 11 graded-stakes. Most recently he was fifth by 2 ¾ lengths in the March 4 Canadian Turf (G3) at Gulfstream Park, where he had earlier returned from eight months between starts with a determined neck victory in a one-mile optional claiming allowance Jan. 13.

“I’ve kind of run him in some tough spots,” Motion said. “He came back and ran super in the allowance race to start the year. This race just sort of appealed to me as a place to kind of get him back on track. He’s doing really well. I couldn’t be happier with him.”

The Clark will be the third start this year for English Bee, who raced only four times in 2022 and went to the sidelines following his fifth-place finish in Pimlico’s Dinner Party (G2), also on Preakness Day. Overall, he has seven wins and $563,825 in purse earnings from 29 starts, and is 5-for-11 at the one-mile distance.

“He’s such a cool horse. He’s kind of become a barn favorite really because he’s been with us so long,” Motion said. “He’s very straightforward in his routine. We really don’t change a whole lot. Obviously, we know him well so we know his intricacies, but he’s basically pretty straightforward.”

Jorge Ruiz has the mount from Post 8 of nine on English Bee, now in his sixth season of racing. Motion previously won the Clark with Ascend in 2017 and Irish Strait in 2019. English Bee is the 2-1 morning line favorite.

The Henry S. Clark often provides starters in the Grade 2 Dinner Party Stakes Preakness weekend, but only two Clark winners have doubled up to win the Pimlico race: Mr. O’Brien in in 2004 and Hudson Steele in 2012.

“He loves it,” he said of English Bee. “It’s funny because the boy that gets on him in Florida, an English rider that I have, he feels like he’s always trying to get him off. He’s a very good rider, but he always gets nervous riding English Bee because he feels like he’s always one step away from coming off him. He’s very perky. He loves his job.”