Steeplechase jockey Darren Nagle will be out for the beginning of the season after breaking his leg in a training accident on March 9.

Nagle was cantering beside a country road when his horse, the 5-year-old flat racer Aviation Show (Bob and John—Little Martha, Broad Brush), spooked at a man working in the trees.

“He put his feet down in a bad area and end up slipping and falling down,” Nagle, Cochranville, Pa., said. “He got up and started jogging away. Obviously being near the side of the road, I was worried he was going to gallop down it, so I ran over to catch him. As I was doing so, he nailed me with a kick right below the knee.

“He kicked me pretty hard, and I kind of felt it go,” Nagle, 26, said. “Luckily I wasn’t far from the barn, and the horse actually galloped back to the barn without incident.”

Nagle broke his tibia right below the knee and will be in a full leg cast for six weeks total. “Because of where it was, right below the knee, they were worried that if it moved, it’d have to have surgery,” he said. “Luckily, the bone didn’t move, there were no fragments, and it was a clean break.”

While Nagle recovers, Aviation Show will remain in training with Leslie Young. His usual jockey Andrew Wolfsont will continue riding him in races.