Horse Performance and Tendon Injury
A research project funded by The Horse Trust has discovered that a racehorse's performance does not markedly change after it has recovered from a tendon injury.
The research was led by Bryan O'Meara, who is in the final year of a three year clinical training scholarship funded by The Horse Trust.
Tendonitis is one of the most common musculoskeletal injuries in racehorses, with a prevalence of 11-30%, according to earlier research.
O'Meara examined the clinical records and racing histories of 400 racehorses who had been treated for superficial digital flexor (SDF) tendonitis injuries over a five year period (2003-2008).
The Horse Trust-funded research looked at the performance of the racehorses in races before and after treatment for the injury, and at the performance of the control horses before and after the treatment date. The Racing Post Rating (RPR), which is published by the Racing Post after every race, was used as a measure of performance.
O'Meara found that there was no significant difference in RPR before and after the treatment date in case and control horses.
This result is unexpected as in vitro studies have found that healed tendon tissue has reduced elasticity due to the presence of scar tissue. This suggests that a horse with a healed SDF tendon would need to work its muscles harder to compensate and would therefore be expected to have lower performance.
O'Meara said more research is needed to back-up his finding that performance isn't significantly affected by tendon injury.
"It could be that using Racing Post Rating to measure performance isn't sensitive enough to pick up a change in the horse's performance," said O'Meara. "However, it's encouraging that there's no marked change in performance after a horse has recovered from a tendon injury. These findings show that there's no need to give up on a horse that has a tendon injury - they can still come back and perform well, or can be used for other, less demanding riding activities."
The Horse Trust-funded research also found that there was no significant difference between case and control horses when returning to racing and completing three races. Only after completing five races, or three years post treatment, was a significant difference found between case and control horses. This finding is a step towards developing a more accurate assessment of tendon treatment - outcome after five races or three years post treatment is a better indicator of the outcome of treatment.
"At the moment, some tendon treatments state their success as the percentage of horses that return to racing after treatment. However, we've shown that there's no significant difference between case and control horses at this time," said O'Meara. "At the moment, there are a myriad of treatments available to treat tendonitis. Hopefully this finding will be used in further research to learn which treatments are most effective."
BSAVA is to partner with BVA Live (11-12 June 2026) to champion clinical research.
