ARCADIA, Calif. – Except for the stories and laughter from trainer Bill Spawr’s office, barn 37 at Santa Anita was unusually quiet this week. Spawr can spin a tale, such as the old-time gypsy trainers who were Spawr’s racetrack neighbors and buried their gambling proceeds inside coffee cans in dirt stalls at Santa Anita. Or the time a filly Spawr had claimed for $50,000 beat Charlie Whittingham in a Grade 1 at Hollywood Park. “I came down the winner’s circle, and he was waiting for me,” Spawr recalled. Whittingham had his arms open, bear-hug style. “Happy for you, Bill,” Whittingham said. Spawr’s voice cracked recalling the 1994 Matriarch victory by Exchange, and the show of respect from Whittingham. “I’ve got so many stories,” Spawr said. “We had a lot of fun.” Now the stable is quiet and empty. It is weird to look down the vacant Spawr shed row that once housed Exchange and champion sprinter Amazombie, where Midnight Bisou began her career, and where Spawr developed $32,000 maiden-claiming winner Bordonaro into a Grade 1 winner. A decorative emblem “WS” (William Spawr) remains affixed on the outside of his barn, but Spawr is moving on. A hands-on horseman, among California’s most respected for nearly five decades, Spawr, 83, started his final runner on Feb. 20. He has disbanded his stable, his final 12 horses have been moved to other trainers. :: Get ready for Santa Anita racing with DRF Past Performances, Picks, and Clocker Reports.  “I’m not retiring,” Spawr declared. “I’m quitting [training] because of over-regulation. It’s to the point where I cannot do the right thing for a horse.” Spawr, who is single, will be an advisor, including scouting potential claims for owners and trainers. “I’ll be around,” he promised. The stream of visitors paying respects this week illustrate Spawr’s reputation. Everyone wanted to wish the best to Spawr, whose stable once numbered more than 70 horses and was among the most prominent in California. He led the Santa Anita winter meet twice (1990-91, 1995-96), and won or shared training titles at Oak Tree (2000, 2001) and Del Mar (1990, 1994). Numbers are only numbers: 1,709 wins from 9,900 starters over a career that began in 1977. Spawr, a veterinary assistant for 14 years before becoming a trainer, helped open the equine hospital in Chino and was an assistant to trainers Wally Dunn, Frank Childs, Jerry Fanning, and Joe Manzi. Spawr is racing history. One day in the 1960s, future Hall of Fame trainer Buster Millerick asked Spawr to administer eye drops to a horse. “You need to grab a stepstool,” Millerick said. Spawr did as he was told. “I looked up, and here’s this big, black sonofabitch. It was Native Diver!” When he considered going on his own, Spawr had no equipment and no money. Millerick gave Spawr a saddle and a bridle. No charge. “He said, pay me when you win some races,” Spawr recalled. “That’s the kind of guy we dealt with.” Spawr routinely arrived at his barn at 2:45 a.m., later at 3:30. “The reason I got here so early, I wanted to feed them, study their habits,” he said. He got inside horses’ heads. Like the filly he claimed who was frightened of everything. She cowered at the back of her stall, shaking. Every day, Spawr went in with a carrot. “She’d smell the carrot, and smell the carrot. And she started eating it, and I’d give her more.” He did it day after day after day. “Now she would put her head out, and see me coming with that white bucket and she knew I was coming with the carrots,” Spawr said. “She started relaxing. She was happy. She put on weight, and we could train her.” Or horses he claimed that were weavers, constantly shifting their weight back and forth. “It’s wasted energy. They’re not happy. They’re nervous,” Spawr said. He would hang a rubber ball in their stall that brushed against them when they weaved. It usually corrected their fidgets. Spawr’s runners mostly came from claiming races. Chris Aplin, who has worked as exercise rider and assistant since 1980, noted Spawr “is good at finding horses that could be claimed and moved up. Maybe they had improper shoes, or hadn’t had their teeth done. Maybe they weren’t eating well and he found what they liked to eat. His key was to get the horse to be happy.” Darryl Rader has worked as Spawr’s assistant for 35 years, and marvels at his attention to detail. :: Get Santa Anita Clocker Reports straight from the morning workouts at the track. Available every race day.  Little got past Spawr. One of Spawr’s favorites was Restage, a claiming horse who won 13 races for Spawr in the 1980s. “He was a little bit goofy, with scars on his hocks,” Spawr said, as if it just happened. “If you wanted to hand-walk him, he’d eat you up. Put him on a [walking] machine, he’d be fine.” Another favorite was My Sonny Boy, winner of the 1990 Cal Cup Classic. Spawr said that based on raw ability, My Sonny Boy was the best horse he ever trained. Spawr developed Amazombie from unraced gelding to 2011 Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner and Eclipse Award champion sprinter. He owned Amazombie with Tom Sanford. Exchange, claimed by Spawr for $50,000, won three Grade 1s. Spawr developed Midnight Bisou from unraced filly to Grade 1 winner before she was moved to Steve Asmussen. “I’ve had good owners,” Spawr said. “People like Jon Lindo.” Prior to back surgery, a summer pastime for Spawr at Del Mar was playing basketball after training, and before first post. He was often found at a nearby schoolyard, where younger rivals could barely keep up. From swapping stories to shooting hoops, Spawr is old school. “I just love working with the horses. I wasn’t a guy that goes out for dinner with people and all that.” :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.