Bill Spawr, a man who rarely strays far from home, is at Churchill Downs this week with Midnight Bisou, winner of three stakes this winter at Santa Anita and just two noses shy of a perfect 5-for-5 record. If the filly wins the 144th running of the Kentucky Oaks on Friday, she will need to be better than such accomplished talents as Monomoy Girl, Coach Rocks, Sassy Sienna, Wonder Gadot, and Rayya, because the final quarter-mile of the nine-furlong Oaks can be just as taxing on the 3-year-old fillies as the end of the longer Kentucky Derby the following day. But if one thing is certain, proven beyond question over decades of data, it’s that a good Thoroughbred trained by Bill Spawr rarely blinks when the stakes are high and the money is on the line. Spawr proved that in his last trip to Churchill Downs, in November of 2011, when he prepared Amazombie to win the Breeders’ Cup Sprint by a neck over Force Freeze, and with it an Eclipse Award as champion male sprinter. :: Visit DRF's Kentucky Derby and Oaks one-stop shop for all your handicapping needs! He proved it in his work with the grand mare Exchange, a $40,000 claim whose three solid years of achievement in the early 1990s included seven major stakes wins on both turf and dirt. Spawr has proven it time and again with horses claimed, bred, or bought for a song. They have names like Skye Diamonds, Enjoy the Moment, Bordonaro, Sensational Star, Restage, and Saratoga Gambler, all of them good enough to win races like the Ancient Title, Triple Bend, Count Fleet, A Gleam, Bing Crosby, Pat O’Brien, Bayakoa, and the Cal Cup Classic. On Friday, it will be Midnight Bisou’s turn, and to hear Spawr tell it, they might not know which way she went. Now in his 42nd year as a public trainer, the California native knows better than to send out the cart before the horse. But this filly has been telling him tales too good not to be true. “She’s amazing,” Spawr said. “I’ve been around some good horses, but living with her, watching her improve and blossom, the way she recovers from works and races … I know I’m jumping around here, but did you see her race in the Oaks?” That would be the Santa Anita Oaks of April 7, in which Midnight Bisou (“kiss” in French) and Mike Smith entered the far turn next to last and emerged into the stretch with dead aim on the leader before drawing off to win by 3 1/2 lengths. “There were a couple old horsemen who said they hadn’t seen a move like that since Arazi,” Spawr said, summoning memories of the French colt’s whirlwind performance in the 1991 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs. “She must have made up eight or 10 lengths on horses that were still running, not backing up. “Her action is amazing,” Spawr went on. “She hits the ground like a feather. Mike says her hind leg comes up farther than most horses, and she just springs forward, never losing her balance.” Jeff Bloom purchased the daughter of Midnight Lute for $80,000 as an Ocala sales 2-year-old in training, then brought partners Andrew Yaffe and Chuck and Lori Allen along for the ride. “She had to get over a case of hives before she shipped,” Spawr recalled. “First impression was of a nice-bodied filly, and as we got to know her we learned she had a good mind. If you overdo it when they’re not ready, you’re going to compromise them. The owners were great about letting her develop.” Even at 78, Spawr still acknowledges the bygone influences that linger just beneath the skin. Spawr’s include Joe Manzi, trainer of champion Roving Boy; Wally Dunn, trainer of Hollywood Gold Cup winner Colorado King; Jerry Fanning, trainer of cracks like Terlago and Desert Wine; and Hall of Famer Frank Childs, trainer of 1959 Kentucky Derby winner Tomy Lee. Childs also won the 1944 Kentucky Oaks with Canina, a daughter of Bull Dog. “Jerry Fanning once said that training horses is 25 percent physical fitness and 75 percent preparing them mentally,” Spawr said. “I think it’s more like 90 percent mental. That’s why I spend so much time at the barn, watching their habits. If I get a new horse, I’ll sit in a chair across from them for a while, read a book, and get to know them.” “He eats, sleeps, breathes the horses,” said Bloom, a former jockey and IT entrepreneur. “There’s so many subtle things he pays such close attention to. I’m not going to lie, at times it can be a challenge, because he is set in his ways. But at the end of the day he’s willing to sit down and talk about it, and we work through it. “Bill’s way of doing things works out for me, too, because I get up early,” Bloom added. “I texted him in California the other day from Florida, a little before six my time. ‘Hey, are you up?’ It barely got through before he yelled back, ‘I’ve been up an hour and a half!’ ” Spawr developed his pre-dawn training routine through Manzi, who died in 1989, by way of Manzi’s mentor, Charlie Whittingham. The breed are nighthawks, arriving in the wee hours, their first set ready to roll when the gates to the track swing open. “The racetrack surface is better, still damp, and level, like a pool table,” Spawr said. “It’s quieter, with not so many horses out there, so you can work mentally with horses who are not that happy with themselves.” It wasn’t long, though, before Midnight Bisou was lighting up the early morning sky. Spawr’s Santa Anita neighbor John Shirreffs was there to work fillies in company. “I was very frustrated by her early on,” Shirreffs said of Spawr’s young gun. “I kept wondering what I had to do to at least stay with her. By now I’ve run against her as well, and as far as I can see that filly has done nothing but improve.” Shirreffs spent two years working for Spawr during the Exchange years. “We’d known each other from our real early days at Bay Meadows,” said Zenyatta’s trainer. “He’s very thorough. I don’t think there’s a more conscientious trainer out there. And he’s dedicated his life to his horses.” More recently, Spawr’s routine was interrupted by a back injury suffered in a freak stall accident that led to surgeries and painful rehab and recuperation. He is rigorous in his rehab therapy, although he still uses a cane to support a left leg with lingering nerve damage. “I’ve had injuries as a rider,” Bloom said. “I know what Bill has gone through, and how tough it is to maintain your focus sometimes while you deal with pain. I’m glad he’s doing much better now.” The Bloom Racing horses are spread among a group of trainers that also includes Jerry Hollendorfer, Mike Maker, Jeff Mullins, Steven Asmussen, and Brad Cox, trainer of Oaks rival Monomoy Girl. “Even though he’s not known for getting young horses ready early, I told Bill that I actually bought Midnight Bisou with him in mind,” Bloom said. “I said I thought I had a filly that might be his Del Mar Debutante horse. The first thing he said to me was, ‘Oh, we’ll take it slow and see.’ ” The 2017 Del Mar Debutante came and went before Spawr unveiled Midnight Bisou as a 2-year-old in an Oct. 27 maiden race at Santa Anita. She lost by a nose to the highly regarded Dream Tree, from the Bob Baffert stable, then lost again to Dream Tree by a nose in the Desi Arnaz Stakes during the Del Mar autumn meet. Dream Tree went on to win the Starlet Stakes at Los Alamitos, but she has yet to start as a 3-year-old and has not had an official work since early March. Midnight Bisou, on the other hand, never missed a beat. She made the seven-furlong Santa Ynez Stakes her maiden win Jan. 7, easily took the March 3 Santa Ysabel Stakes on a wet track, then won the Grade 1 Santa Anita Oaks with the move on the final turn that elicited audible gasps. Putting his filly on the road for the toughest test of her young career, Spawr left nothing to chance. He gave her the company of the older mare Skye Diamonds, who runs Saturday in the Humana Distaff, along with several key stable personnel, while assistant Darryl Rader mans the fort back home. “We wanted to make sure she’s comfortable, and adjust to anything she might need,” Spawr said. As for Spawr? Could a first brush with a race like Kentucky Oaks rattle even the most experienced trainer? “Because of the medications I’ve had to take, I haven’t had a drink for four years, so that’s out,” Spawr said with a laugh. “I can’t get nervous, though, or I might make bad decisions. The best thing for me to do is just spend a lot of time with my horses.”