River Special Out With Shin Injury

River Special, one of last year’s top 2-year-olds but a hard-luck horse at 3, will be sidelined for at least three months because of a shin injury.

Gayle Van Leer, racing manager for John and Betty Mabee’s Golden Eagle Farm, said Thursday that River Special has been sent to the farm at Ramona after X-rays showed that the colt has a splint injury in his right foreleg.

“It could have been worse, it could have been a fracture,” Van Leer said.

River Special had been declared out of Saturday’s Santa Anita Derby, even before the X-rays. As a 2-year-old, River Special won the Del Mar Futurity, the Norfolk Stakes at Santa Anita and the Hollywood Futurity and finished third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Gulfstream Park. River Special’s 3-year-old campaign was hampered by a fever at Santa Anita. In his only start this season he was fifth, beating just one horse, in the San Felipe Stakes.