CYPRESS, Calif. - The final call of announcer Ed Burgart’s 40-year career will be Sunday evening’s Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity for Quarter Horses. As the race begins, Burgart is likely to start with his familiar description, “And away they go!” The 400-yard race will take about 19.5 seconds. After the race, Burgart will introduce the winner’s circle ceremony, review the prices of the final race and conclude with a good night message. In the past, Burgart has used his farewell comment each evening to express good wishes to friends, family, horsemen, or press colleagues. Sunday’s farewell recipient remains a top-class secret. “I know who it will be, but I’m not going to give it away,” he said last weekend. “It depends on the frame of mind I’m in and whether my pick 6 hit or lost.” Ever playful in conversation, and at the windows, Burgart, 67, is retiring as the voice of the Quarter Horse meeting at Los Alamitos. While Burgart will continue to write the track’s morning line, which he has done for years, he will no longer call the action, write the program comments, appear as a paddock commentator during the brief Thoroughbred meetings, conduct handicapping seminars, or serve as the track’s ambassador. When the Los Alamitos night meeting resumes later this month, Michael Wrona will replace Burgart. Wrona is calling the current Thoroughbred meeting at Los Alamitos and will have that position at the daytime meetings in 2020. Burgart's retirement from the announcer’s booth has been more than a year in the making and has been postponed twice. Burgart announced in 2018 he would retire in June of that year and later at the end of 2018. He decided to call for the entire 2019 season after discussions with track owner Ed Allred in the summer of 2018. Burgart’s wife, Marsha, had an integral role in the decision, too. “Toward the end of the year, he said I want you to stay another year,” Burgart recalled of his conversation with Allred in 2018. “I said I would if I my wife agreed to the terms. He offered me two months paid vacation and she wanted three. “I got three months. We were able to travel in February and March and travel in September, that encouraged me for the future, we want to travel now.” In 2020, the Burgarts are hitting the road again. Being a racing man, the journeys will include visits to racetracks, large and small. The couple will attend their first Kentucky Derby in May. Ed Burgart said he is looking forward to visiting Belmont Park and Saratoga for the first time, as well as making a swing through middle America tracks such as Delta Downs, Fonner Park, Lone Star Park, Remington Park, and Ruidoso Downs. While those venues may not appear on many bucket lists, Burgart has friends working at those locations, notably former California track announcer Chris Kotulak at Fonner Park and executive Scott Wells at Remington Park. The Burgarts are retiring to Prescott Valley, Ariz., where they have had a home since 2006. Burgart became involved with racing at Los Alamitos in 1977, working in the publicity department to organize results for radio stations. A lifelong resident of Southern California, Burgart was already a fan, attending races as a youngster and as a college student at UCLA. As a journalist at the Daily Pilot, Burgart wrote occasional articles about Los Alamitos racing, which eventually led to a job in publicity. Burgart called his first race at the Bay Meadows Quarter Horse meeting in 1979, and caught a break when the main announcer became ill. Burgart called the races for three days. He was full time the following year at Bay Meadows and began calling the Horsemen’s Quarter Horse Racing Association meeting at Los Alamitos in 1981. He had yet to turn 30. For years, Burgart called the Quarter Horse meetings at Los Alamitos and filled in for Trevor Denman at the Hollywood Park autumn meeting in 1994-95. Los Alamitos has operated a year-round Quarter Horse and lower-level Thoroughbred meeting since 2000, which has kept Burgart active for nearly two decades. The job has changed in recent years with the launch of daytime Thoroughbred meetings at Los Alamitos. Burgart briefly called the daytime and evening races during those meetings in 2014, but found the task too difficult. He said the current blend of working as a paddock commentator at day and calling the evening races is a better mix during those meetings. The idea of retiring accelerated in 2017 following the death of longtime Los Alamitos racing executive Brad McKinzie to cancer. “I want to go out when I’m close to on top of the game,” Burgart said. “I don’t want to wait when I’m making a lot of mistakes. “The Brad McKinzie thing shook me up quite a bit. He was younger than I was and we go back a long way. I saw Brad’s illness and how it affected him. It does wake you up quite a bit. It’s time to enjoy ourselves. Racing has been good to me. “It’s a good time to get out.” This weekend, Burgart is at the center of attention - along with the final days of the track’s two-week winter Thoroughbred meeting and three nights of top-class Quarter Horse races, including Saturday’s $600,000 Champion of Champions and Sunday’s Two Million Futurity. There is even a Burgart bobblehead doll giveaway on Saturday evening. “To go out with a big race is probably the way to do it,” he said last weekend. “This will be my 39th Champion of Champions.  “It’s the right way to go out. The horses and the people and the fans made my job.” The Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity often has championship implications. This year, the race will be remembered as much for Burgart’s final call, even though he does not want to detract from the lucrative race. “I don’t want to take away from the importance of that race with my call,” he said. “I’d rather the emphasis of my last call be at a bar, but that’s beside the point.”