Rain or shine, multiple stakes winner Proceed Bee is a go for Saturday night’s Grade 3, $200,000 Connally Cup Turf at Sam Houston Race Park. He was one of seven older horses entered in the 1 1/8-mile turf race Wednesday. Proceed Bee will be invading from Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., and is to ship to Houston on Friday, trainer Scott Becker said.

The forecast for Saturday in Houston calls for mostly sunny skies and a high of 66 degrees, but on Wednesday portions of the city were under a flood warning. Rain also was forecast for Wednesday night and possibly into Thursday.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Although a first-level optional $50,000 claimer for 3-year-old sprinters is positioned in the traditional “feature” position as race 8 at Aqueduct on Friday, tune in early for your best chance of seeing any truly up-and-coming 3-year-olds, because the opener is a six-furlong maiden special that actually carries the day’s richest purse at $60,000.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Garrett Gomez had a cast removed from his left ankle Tuesday, a little more than two weeks after fracturing a heel in an accident near the paddock at Santa Anita on Jan. 8.

Gomez, 40, began physical therapy Wednesday and is hoping to make a comeback in March as previously scheduled. He underwent surgery earlier this month to have 10 screws and a plate inserted in the heel to stabilize the injury.

“It looks really good, according to the doctor,” said Pam Gomez, the jockey’s wife. She said Gomez could return in early March “in a best-case scenario.”

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas won the Oaklawn meet’s first route stakes for fillies and mares last weekend with Absinthe Minded. Now, he has his sights set on the filly and mare sprint ranks with a newcomer to his barn, Palooza.

“She just got here,” Lukas said Wednesday.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Buff Bradley said he’s not especially fond of running fillies against males but he made an exception to that rule when he entered his talented Groupie Doll against the boys in Friday’s fourth-level optional $100,000 claiming feature at Gulfstream Park.

Add Where’s Sterling to the already prominent list of names expected to run in the Grade 1 Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park on Feb. 11.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Trainer Simon Callaghan says it is vital that Falcon Rock starts in Friday’s second race at Santa Anita, an optional claimer over 1 1/4 miles on turf. Such long-distance turf races have become rare in Southern California, and Falcon Rock hasn’t raced since November.

“We’ve been waiting ages,” Callaghan said.

Callaghan has two of the six entrants, including Slim Shadey, who won a first condition optional claimer over 1 1/4 miles on turf Jan. 12.

Lone Star Park has discontinued its annual Million Day program of stakes for 2012, but that card’s traditional anchor, the Grade 3, $300,000 Lone Star Park Handicap, will again be run on Memorial Day. The race will be linked with two other stakes, one at Lone Star and one at Remington Park, by an owner-trainer bonus of $20,000.

Lone Star, located in the Dallas area, was purchased in May 2011 by Global Gaming Solutions, the owner of Remington Park in Oklahoma City. Global Gaming is a subsidiary of the Chickasaw Nation, which is based in Ada, Okla.

It isn’t often that the richest race on a Friday card is the first, but that’s what six-horse fields will do to a racing secretary. A second-level optional $40,000 claimer with a $51,000 purse will be run at Fair Grounds before most folks can enjoy their soup du jour, a testament to the overall strength – or lack thereof – of what’s on tap Friday at the New Orleans track.

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Graham Motion was awakened about 3 a.m. Wednesday by the sound of rain pounding on the roof of his home. As the rain continued for the better part of an hour, Motion lay awake thinking that his plan to work his 3-year-old champion Animal Kingdom a few hours later would have to be changed.

Or, as Motion succinctly put it, “I thought we were screwed.”