Cal Cup Goes Back to the Day 'Sonny' Sparkled for Spawr

Any resemblance to the original California Cup concept and this year's edition is purely coincidental. Unveiled in 1990 by the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association and the Oak Tree Racing Association, the event offered a heavily promoted day of well-funded racing for horses bred or sired in California. It has dwindled to Saturday's five stakes, and only three of the five bear the Cal Cup brand. Those three are dedicated to Don Valpredo, Leigh Ann Howard, and California Chrome, all stalwart representatives of the industry. The Unusual Heat Turf Classic Stakes honors the memory of the California stallion who was born, appropriately enough, in 1990. Unusual Heat, a son of Nureyev, died in 2017, leaving behind a legacy of classy Cal-bred sons and daughters that included 2011 champion older male Acclamation, millionaires The Usual Q. T. and Unusual Suspect, and such major stakes winners as Lethal Heat, Golden Doc A, Majestic Heat, and Gervinho. The Santa Anita Park card also includes three maiden races and an allowance optional claimer, all for products of the state. The day concludes with the Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Turf Sprint Stakes at 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course. Attaching the quaint "Sunshine Millions" moniker to any race these days is a nod to rueful nostalgia. Gulfstream Park, which shared the bygone Millions competition between Cal-breds and Florida-breds, has dropped the relic of a name, replacing it on Saturday with the Sunshine Sprint Stakes and the Sunshine Turf Stakes. Truth in advertising. The highlight of the Cal Cup was always the California Cup Classic Handicap, at 1 1/8 miles on the main track. Through the years, the race was won by horses who also made their mark in the best open company, including Budroyale, Sky Jack, Megan's Interco, and Hall of Famer Best Pal. Despite their notoriety, they all had a hard act to follow. The drama surrounding the first Classic winner—a gelding named My Sonny Boy—is the stuff of racetrack legends. My Sonny Boy was a son of 1981 English Two Thousand Guineas (G1) winner To-Agori-Mou, bred and initially raced by the Johnston family of California's Old English Rancho. In June of 1990, after winning two of 19 starts, My Sonny Boy was claimed for $62,500 by trainer Bill Spawr for his patron, Carlton Sell, who made his money first in auto dealerships and then commercial real estate. Spawr waited a couple of months, then tried his new shooter twice in high-priced claimers before going after a couple of stakes at the Los Angeles County Fair. "I think he was the best horse I ever had in terms of untapped ability," Spawr said. "We did a few things that helped him physically, and by the time the Cal Cup came around, he was doing better than ever. We lost him to colic not long after the Cal Cup. Apparently, he'd had some problems earlier we didn't know about. I'm still upset about that." Believe Spawr when he declares such a sentiment. He spent a career of nearly half a century flipping the term "claiming trainer" on its head by turning unsung Thoroughbreds into significant winners, polishing each of them to a high shine of health and competitive zeal. Spawr retired in 2023, leaving in his wake a gallery of stakes stars led by 2011 champion male sprinter Amazombie, Exchange, Midnight Bisou, Bordonaro, Enjoy the Moment, Skye Diamonds, and too many more to mention. On the day before this year's scaled down Cal Cup, Spawr was speaking from a room at Arcadia Methodist Hospital, across the street from Santa Anita. The week before, an abscess in his previously injured right ankle led to an aggressive bacterial infection and sepsis. Finally, the leg had to be amputated below the knee. "I didn't have a choice," said Spawr, who turned 86 in December. "It was the right thing to do. I had four different doctors tell me I could have waited and maybe lasted a year, but I'd be a dead man. "It didn't get to my knee, though, and that's huge," he said. "I learned that if it gets past there, you're in trouble. The day after they cut if off, one of the doctors told me that she'd had several patients when they caught it before it got to the knee, and some of them are running races and playing soccer. I'll settle for walking into the backstretch to visit my friends." And they are legion. Spawr continues to be admired for the way he did business and how he presented his blue-collar runners on the same stage as the million-dollar babies. On that first Cal Cup day, 36 years ago, My Sonny Boy was scheduled to be ridden by Patrick Valenzuela, who was making all the wrong kind of headlines at the time for substance abuse. Valenzuela rode a winner for Spawr on the day before the Cup, then called in "sick" at 11 o'clock the next morning. When asked by the board of stewards to take a drug test, Valenzuela refused and was handed a six-month suspension. Spawr spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out a replacement. With full fields in the array of Cal Cup stakes, nearly all of the prime riding talent was committed throughout the day. Shortly before the Classic horses arrived in the saddling barn, Spawr learned that Jorge Velasquez, who was spending the autumn in California, had wrapped up his rides and was out the door. "My assistant, Darryl Rader, lit out on a dead run for the parking lot and got Velasquez out of his car before he could leave," Spawr said. "Then he went out and won the Classic with My Sonny Boy. It was a nice purse in those days, too." In fact, the $165,000 first-place prize from the $300,000 Classic purse was the richest earned by Velasquez in 1990 among his 216 winners. That summer, the 42-year-old Panamanian had been inducted into the Thoroughbred racing Hall of Fame on the strength of more than 6,000 wins—he would close his career in 1997 with 6,795 wins—and his close association with such superstars as Alydar, Pleasant Colony, Desert Vixen, and Davona Dale. "Years later, I was at Belmont Park to run a horse," Spawr said. "Velasquez had retired and become a jock's agent. He was walking near the paddock when the friend I was with saw him and said, 'Oh, I want you to meet this guy.' "As soon as Jorge saw me, he throws his arms open and goes, 'Bill Spawr! My Sonny Boy! Everybody, he's right here! How could I ever forget?'" In the same spirit, Spawr's friends are far from forgetting him now. "At one point, in my small hospital room, I had 14 visitors who came over after the races," Spawr said. "Laffit (Pincay) is coming tomorrow. Mike Smith has been here three times. Richard Mandella comes by almost every day. I really appreciate all of the support and love that people are sending me. It really makes a difference."