Tendon injuries are the most common career-ending condition in equine athletes. Understanding the biomechanical and training factors that predispose horses to tendon injury enables preventive management.
Tendon injuries cause acute pain at injury and prolonged rehabilitation suffering — the horse that has ruptured the SDFT faces months of enforced rest, multiple ultrasonographic assessments, and the uncertainty of whether they will return to previous function. Prevention is dramatically more welfare-positive than management of established injury. The training factors that predispose to tendon injury — overwork on inappropriate surfaces, insufficient progressive conditioning, work to fatigue, and poor core stability — are all modifiable. The economic and welfare cost of a single tendon injury in a performance horse — representing months of rehabilitation and career uncertainty — justifies significant investment in the prevention strategies that reduce this risk.