Horse Trainer

One of the racing world's most bizarre mysteries took a chilling turn yesterday when prominent Australian horse trainer Vic Rail died after suffering symptoms similar to those that have killed 14 horses. Rail, 50, died of a heart attack in a Brisbane hospital, where he was admitted a week ago. At the time he was admitted, nine horses had died from undiagnosed symptoms at his stables in Brisbane. All racing in the south of Queensland state has been halted while authorities try to find the cause of the illness that has hit two suburban stables - those of Rail and the adjoining stables of John Fitzgerald.

It was a motley crew: a Chester County horse trainer, a young Reading police officer, a Montgomery County prison official, a recently paroled Philadelphia man linked to an extortion scandal in the late 1980s, and a 67- year-old man living in a Lansdale retirement home. What tied them together, law enforcement officials say, was their reputed involvement in a sophisticated methamphetamine ring that operated throughout Montgomery County and in parts of Chester and Bucks Counties.

Burton Sipp, the horse trainer who was banned from racing in 1984 and reinstated in Pennsylvania last year, has been put out of business at thoroughbred tracks in the state. The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, upholding appeals by the Bensalem Racing Association (Philadelphia Park) and Penn National Turf Club, last week denied Sipp access to the only two thoroughbred tracks in the state. "Sipp's record is so deplorable," wrote Judge James Gardner Colins in a 15-page opinion, "that there was clearly reasonable justification for (the tracks')

Your wife offers $20,000 to two relatives if they will kill you. Your story is on the front page of your hometown newspaper, day after day. You find your way on to "Hard Copy. " Your horse trainer, one of your best friends, offers to start your car for you every morning, get you restaurant tables with your back against a wall. What do you do? You buy an interest in a 3-year-old colt and point him toward the Kentucky Derby. You come to Churchill Downs and talk to anybody who will listen.

Motorists tooling along Jacksonville Road should not be surprised if they get the sensation of being watched from above. It's probably just Uno, Michael and their unnamed companion - a trio of giraffes now residing at Animal Kingdom Zoo. Uno arrived late Monday night, on loan from a zoo in Massachusetts. He is the latest addition to the 38-acre, private facility. Tuesday morning, he and his new companions eyed each other warily. Occasionally, they would gallop past one another with seemingly effortless grace.

If the Santa Ana winds continue to blow westward toward the Pacific Ocean, if the firestorm that is now burning Malibu, some 45 miles away, doesn't reverse directions, and if the acrid black smoke doesn't reappear and engulf Santa Anita Park and force it to close, the way it did one day last week, the grandest day in horse racing will go off as scheduled here on Saturday. Massive dark smoke clouds that hung over the northwest Los Angeles suburbs greeted horsemen yesterday as they began arriving for the $10 million Breeders' Cup, which for nine years has attracted the fastest, most expensive horses from around the globe.

Burton K. Sipp's violations of the rules of horse racing over the years fill a single-spaced computer printout sheet four feet long. His penalties range from a $25 fine for failing to properly dispose of manure to a worldwide ban on racing horses or even attending racetracks, imposed in 1984. They include a 60-day suspension for administering a prohibited pain- killing medication to a horse before a race. Other racing citations include entering horses in races they were ineligible to run in; using forged health certificates to run unhealthy horses in races, and failing to maintain up-to- date ownership records.

F. Bruce Miller pushed the wheelbarrow full of grass clippings up the incline past the barn at his horse-training facilities in Cochranville. Beads of sweat ringed his forehead. It was not the type of work you would picture for a man who has been consistently ranked by the National Steeplechase Association in the top five as a trainer of steeplechase horses. But Miller said that with a small operation like his, even the owner has to find time to do a little of everything. "Yes, I do the weeding and mowing," he said.

Carolyn Marshall, a Cinnaminson horse trainer and riding instructor, thought her plan to rehabilitate the old Barclay Farm equestrian center in Evesham, one of South Jersey's few indoor riding arenas, was an idea the township could not refuse. With a little "spit and polish," Marshall said, the township-owned arena and barns could be opened to the public for riding lessons, boarding and shows. It could be a distinguishing Evesham landmark. Best of all, she said, it could be a moneymaker for the township.

Some horse lovers hope Evesham Township will again consider a proposal to refurbish the barns and riding area at the township-owned Barclay Farm on Tuckerton Road. But township officials said they had other plans for the property and were not likely to change them. Earlier this year, the Township Council decided to establish a sports complex at Barclay Farm and renovate the barns for offices and a garage for the Public Works Department. The township has already contracted for engineering and planning for the two projects.