Horse Trainer

Jim Day doesn't mind flying, as long as it's in an airplane. But hold the helicopters. Day can't even stand the sound of those things. Whenever he hears the sound of a helicopter, it reminds him of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, where Arab terrorists invaded the athletes' village, killing 11 members of the Israeli team.

Watching horse trainer Bill Spawr at work is a reflection of everyone who rises each day dedicated to a career they would like to think will one day provide a significant measure of satisfaction. Spawr, 72, has spent more than 50 years trying to make sense of horse racing. None of his horses has won a Triple Crown, and his best showing in a Breeders' Cup was fourth place. Yet, every day at the fall meeting at Santa Anita Park, he was inside his barn at 3:15 a.m. And Saturday, the veteran trainer sends out 5-year-old gelding Amazombie as one of the favorites in the $1-million Breeders' Cup sprint race at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky. "I've learned some of the answers, but you never get to know them all, because horses are individuals," Spawr said last week in his wooden barn at Santa Anita that houses 32 animals.

BALTIMORE — In the midst of the greatest time of his professional life, horse trainer Doug O'Neill is being followed around by an asterisk. Reporters want to know about his Kentucky Derby-winning horse, I'll Have Another. They want to know about O'Neill himself — how he got started, who he is, what he thinks about any number of topics. They want to know about young jockey Mario Gutierrez, who should have been way too green to ride the kind of race he did at Churchill Downs. They want to know about owner J. Paul Reddam, who made his money in the loan business and who named the horse by reprising a scene at home, where he sits on the couch, eats a cookie and requests another one from his wife.

I like the guy, and that's before I hear about Armando Gonzalez and talk to Armando's brother, Ralph . I've known horse trainer Doug O'Neill for years, not so well that he tips me off before I'll Have Another wins the Kentucky Derby and then the Preakness. But I know him, having to be tough at times, writing almost two years ago about accusations that he's a cheater, and Doug saying, "I swear on my kids' eyes I don't. " I know him as one of the most gregarious people you might ever meet, but today he's subdued, cautious and nothing like I remember.

Trainer David Bernstein has been sanctioned by the California Racing Board because his horse Truly A Judge tested too high for an alkalizing agent at Del Mar on Sept. 5. Truly A Judge, a 7-year-old gelding, finished third in the $86,000 Windy Sands Handicap. Because the violation was against a house rule, the purse of the race won't be affected.

David Cross, who saddled Sunny's Halo, the Kentucky Derby winner in 1983, is leaving the thoroughbred business to train quarter horses. Cross has claimed or bought nine quarter horses and plans to run them when the Bay Meadows season opens Feb. 21. Since the retirement of Sunny's Halo to stud at the end of '83, Cross has had difficulty establishing a quality public stable in California. He once went five months without a winner and had only a handful of winners in '84.

A $100,000 reward was offered Friday for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever severely beat horse trainer Robert Gilbert at Los Alamitos Racetrack earlier this week. "We want these people caught," said Jeff True, director of marketing for the track, which is offering the reward. "We're shocked and hurt that someone has come to our house and hurt one of our people."

The license of Bob DeBonis, a New York trainer, was suspended by the State Racing and Wagering Board on Wednesday for what was termed fraud in connection with misrepresenting New York-bred horses he bred and raced. According to Robert Feuerstein, counsel for the board, DeBonis' license was to have run through 1991.

Glenn H. Randall Sr., who trained horses ranging from cavalry mounts to Roy Rogers' palomino, Trigger, and other Western movie horses, has died at his Newhall residence. He was 83. A longtime Newhall resident, Randall died Tuesday of cancer, said his wife, Lynn Randall. Born on Christmas Day, 1908, in Melbeta, Neb., Randall began training horses at age 9 and by his early teens was breaking and training horses and mules for the U.S. Cavalry at Fort Robinson, Neb.

Victor J. "Lefty" Nickerson, the New York horse trainer who was instrumental in sending John Henry to California, where the ageless gelding won two horse-of-the-year titles in the early 1980s, died Friday at his home in Smithtown, N.Y. He was 75. Nickerson, who had a stroke in 1996, also tutored Richard Mandella, a future Hall of Fame trainer who won Saturday's $6-million Dubai World Cup.