Spawr Walks Away From Training, Disperses Stable

After a lifetime of his internal clock waking him up between 1:15-2:45 a.m. to start his morning, early even for a horse trainer, Bill Spawr may finally be ready, he said, to "break that habit."

That is not the only change in the 83-year-old's life. As first reported by Daily Racing Form, Spawr has disbanded his small stable, leaving behind the training profession due to what he described as "overregulations" in California horse racing. The Southern California-based Spawr still plans to stay involved as an adviser for some of his longtime clients and race a few horses he owns in partnership.

Known for his horsemanship in a racetrack career that began in 1958 before he eventually became a head trainer in the 1970s, Spawr cited equine inspections from regulatory veterinarians as one of his chief frustrations. 

Spawr said the regulatory vets need to trust the trainer more and have a conversation regarding the horse's health.

Under procedures adopted by the California Horse Racing Board and tracks in the state, horses in California are more regularly inspected than those in other regions. Those inspections, as well as other regulations and cultural changes from participants in the industry, are often cited by officials as contributing factors that have led to a sharp drop in equine fatalities since Santa Anita Park experienced a spike in breakdowns in early 2019.

Oversight from the Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Authority and its Anti-Doping and Medication Control will begin in California and most Thoroughbred racing states late this month.

The hands-on Spawr leaves the training ranks having trained 1,709 winners from 9,900 starters and his horses earning more than $48.6 million. Foremost of those victories was a triumph from California-bred Amazombie  in the Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) at Churchill Downs during the sprinter's Eclipse Award-winning season in 2011. Spawr co-owned him with Thomas Sanford.

Spawr also won 29 other graded stakes races with horses such as Sensational Star, Exchange, Enjoy the Moment, Bordonaro , Skye Diamonds , and Midnight Bisou —who he trained through her third-place finish in the 2018 Kentucky Oaks (G1) of her 3-year-old season before her transfer to Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen.

Asked of his lasting memories from training these and other horses, Spawr said their daily interactions stick with him.

"My highlights were going to the barn and seeing the horses and feeding them," he said. 

The bond the trainer shared with his horses and his attention to detail were unmistakable, said owner Jon Lindo, who raced horses with the trainer for 35 years.

"The thing with him was he always wanted to make the horse happy," Lindo said. "We did a lot of claiming. When we claimed a lot of them, I would just forget about them for about six or eight weeks. He would fiddle with them, figure out what made them tick, and made them happy, and once he got them to that point, then he would go on with them and train them. He was really in tune with them. He loved the horses."

Lindo, who owned Skye Diamonds with Allen Racing, Bloom Racing Stables, and Tom Acker, was not alone in benefiting from Spawr's skill in spotting claiming prospects and developing them into higher-class runners.

"He got a guy like me to the Breeders' Cup at my home track at Del Mar, just down the street from where I live," Lindo said. "That was really a treat. To be able to participate at a Breeders' Cup with a horse we claimed. She didn't win but she ran fourth and gave them a run for the money there. Just to be able to participate in something like that for a guy like me that was dealing with mostly cheaper horses didn't get to go there.

"But (Bill) did it time and time again. He claimed Sensational Star for $32,000; he made over $400,000. He claimed Exchange for $50,000 and made her a millionaire and grade 1 winner. My Sonny Boy he claimed for $62,500, and he won the original Cal Cup Classic. I mean one after the other."

Some of the great jockeys of the sport also rode for Spawr, including Laffit Pincay, Frankie Dettori, Mike Smith, Richard Migliore, and Jorge Velasquez.

When scheduled jockey Patrick Valenzuela was absent from racing in the afternoon of the 1990 California Cup Classic, Spawr's longtime assistant Darryl Rader dashed into the parking lot at Santa Anita and ran down Velasquez, who was departing the track mid-afternoon, to be a late replacement aboard My Sonny Boy. Naturally, the horse won.

Years later, at Belmont Park, the jockey and trainer would share laughs about how that memorable pairing unfolded.

"A true horseman. I loved riding for him," tweeted Migliore, who shifted his customary East Coast base to ride in California for a period. "He is among the greatest trainers that I had the privilege to ride for. A great person. The game is diminished for his retirement."

Spawr, who won multiple meet training titles in Southern California in the 1990s and early 2000s, has dispersed his horses to other trainers, with some of them going to Phil D'Amato and Dean Pederson, Lindo said.

But Lindo may still utilize Spawr's shrewd eye for a claiming recommendation, noting the old-school horseman still keeps notes on potential prospects after evaluating them on race days.

"I'd hate to see his garage because he has all these programs with notes in them," he said.

Spawr said his program stash is smaller than it used to be. "I just threw the ones out from 2019 and 2018," he laughed.

Spawr's commitment to claiming showed in the returns to his owners.

"He didn't have a bunch of breeders that would give him a bunch of horses to start with it," Lindo said. "We gave him what we could, and he made a lot of chicken feathers into chicken soup."