Hubert “Sonny” Hine, the beloved thoroughbred horseman who trained the great Skip Away and many other top runners in his half-century career, died early yesterday morning in Miami. He was 69.

Sonny, stricken by cancer several years ago, had been undergoing chemotherapy but asked his friends and members of the press to keep it secret. He was still training a small string of horses at the time of his death, most of them owned by Carolyn, his wife of 37 years.

Born in The Bronx, Hine was one of the most colorful characters in racing. His father, the son of a Russian immigrant, was a clothing merchant and trainer on the Maryland-West Virginia circuit. As a youngster, Sonny would ride in match races at country fairs. The night of his high-school graduation in 1948, he hitchhiked to Charles Town racetrack and that year saddled his first winner, Miss Economy, at the old Marlboro course.

While at Charles Town, Hine met FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who was a big racing fan. Over the next decade, Sonny worked for the FBI, learned to speak Mandarin Chinese, dropped behind enemy lines as an Air Force sergeant during the Korean War, and served undercover with the State Department and CIA in Hong Kong.

In 1957, Sonny returned to racing full time, and five years later he married Carolyn. There were many lean years — often the couple slept in their car — but by the mid-1970s Hine was an established force on the mid-Atlantic circuit with stakes winners like Cojak and Con Man.

Sonny never had a stable full of expensive horseflesh, but he was a consummate horseman who made the most with what he had. In the 1980s, he developed major stakes winners Amber Pass, Bet Big, champion sprinter Guilty Conscience, Norquestor and Skip Trial, who won the Gulfstream Park Handicap two years in a row.

In 1992, Sonny won the Florida Derby and Haskell with Technology, and three years later he bought Skip Away, a son of Skip Trial, for $22,500 as a birthday present for Carolyn.

“Skippy” went on to become one of racing’s all-time greats, finishing first, second or third in 34 of 38 starts, 31 of those graded stakes. A popular champion at 3 and 4, the big gray colt once won nine races in a row, including the Jockey Club Gold Cup for the second straight year and the Breeders’ Cup Classic (after being supplemented for $400,000) by six lengths.

As a 5-year-old, Skip Away was 1998 Horse of the Year, and he retired with earnings of more than $9.6 million, second only to Cigar.

But Sonny was more than a great trainer. He was a great guy, candid and gregarious, always happy to see a friendly face stop by his barn, where he and Carolyn offered donuts and bagels.

I’ll never forget tagging along with Hine the morning of the 1998 Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs, when he took Skip Away out for the final pre-race gallop of his career.

As Skippy came off the track, Sonny’s eyes misted over and a tear ran down his cheek.

“This is really hard to take,” he said. “It’s tough, really tough. He’s been a gift from God, a heck of a reward for all the years of hard work, all the hardships for my wife and I.”

A graveside service will be held for Sonny at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Mt. Nebo-Kendall Memorial Gardens, 5900 S.W. 77th Ave. in Miami. Carolyn asks that, in lieu of flowers, contributions in his name be made to the contributor’s favorite charity.