Detecting Tendon Injury Before It Ends a Career

Aim

Help Tendonworks develop and validate a simple blood test that spots tendon injury before it's visible, protecting horses' health and career

Detecting Tendon Injury Before It Ends a Career
Anyone who has spent time in horse racing understands the moment: a horse pulls up, a leg fills and a career full of promise is suddenly in doubt. Tendon injury affects up to 30% of Thoroughbred racehorses and re-injury rates frequently exceed 50%. For owners and trainers the cost is enormous, and for the horse, too often, it can be terminal. At Tendonworks, we aim to change that with a new test that can help spot tendon injury long before it shows itself.

Where it began
The first actively competing racehorse I managed was Be My Royal. Many of you will remember his famous 33/1 Hennessy Gold Cup ‘win’ in 2002 for Willie Mullins. The performance came at a huge cost: a severe tendon injury that everyone expected to end his career. Willie and his owner, the late Archie O'Leary, had the foresight and courage to try what I was offering and I remain grateful to this day, because it changed my life. For ‘Roy’, it was not the end, he went on to race many more times and later, proudly in my own name.
I came to horse racing, with no previous association or connections, with a PhD/MD in tendon biology and an MSc in Sports and Exercise Medicine with a simple question, could the approaches that worked for human patients help racehorses? Twenty-five years and more than 650 cases later, Tendonworks has worked alongside many of you, as trainers, owners and vets, to bring horses back to the racecourse, often at the highest level. Throughout, one principle has guided everything: the horse comes first. That's why I've always believed the best treatment is catching an injury before it happens.

The problem we still can't solve
Ultrasound and clinical signs show us damage once it has happened, and that's often too late. They can't tell us what is going on inside the tendon: whether it is starting to fail, or whether it has truly healed. As a result, injuries are caught after the event, and return-to-training decisions still depend too heavily on subjective judgement.

What we're building
We're developing a simple blood test that measures tendon biology and highlights active damage to the tendon's structure. Since 2016, funded entirely from our clinical work, we have identified biomarker proteins linked to tendon injury. The next step is to turn that discovery into a reliable test and prove it works by comparing injured horses with healthy ones.

A validated test aims to:
- flag tendon problems before there is any outward sign
- show objectively how healing is progressing
- provide vets and trainers real data for return-to-training decisions
- help reduce the risk of re-injury

Alongside this, we will use our 25-year library of tendon ultrasound images to develop AI software with a sector-leading ultrasound manufacturer, to help predict injury more accurately from scans and ultimately link this to the blood test data.

What your support will do
Every donation, whatever its size, will move this project forward. As an example, £100,000 would fund development of the Tendonworks biomarker assay, turning the proteins we have already identified into a reliable, repeatable blood test. The next step is clinical validation in injured and healthy horses, bringing the test closer to the yards, vets and horses who need it.

Our clinical work will continue to support this development, but it cannot fund this stage alone. The more we raise, the faster we can get there.
Why I'm asking you

This project grew out of the horses that many of you and I have worked with over the years. You've seen what tendon injury does, and you'll know only too well what it would mean to catch it earlier. Every pledge helps, whatever its size, and sharing this page with others who care about racehorse welfare matters just as much.

With your support, I believe we can create a world where racehorses don't have to live with the jeopardy of tendon injury, where it is identified long before it brings catastrophic consequences, as Roy's almost did.

Thank you for your support.
Dr David Chapman-Jones


Founder, Tendonworks

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 14th November 2026 at 5:11pm