Is “Natural” Better for Our Horses?

The terms natural and organic are widely used in todays horse world. The use of the term organic in the manufacturing and marketing of products aimed at horse owners is regulated by government agencies. The use of the term natural is not and so a great deal more caution must be exercised by horse owners when sourcing these kinds of products for their horses. 
What about the care and husbandry of our horses? What is natural behaviour for horses and are we doing them a favour when choosing to keep their lifestyles as natural as possible?

When we discuss what constitutes natural behaviour for our horses we need to talk about equine evolution. Researchers agree that one of the reasons horses have competed so successfully against other species is because they possess the ability to habituate themselves to their surroundings. They can learn from previous experiences. Their survival instincts are excellent and their trainability is what has made the horsehuman interaction so successful.
The bodies of horses have completely evolved around their digestive tract. The horses digestive tract is comprised of two parts the foregut and the hindgut. Their foregut is very much like the digestive tract of any monogastric or singlestomached species and functions on the action of an acidic environment and mammalian enzymes. The hindgut is very large and allows the horse to utilize fibrous forages with great efficiency. Because horses have such a complex and evolved digestive tract they have an evolutionary advantage over other animal species. The ability to adapt to any forage or browse regardless of forage quality has given horses a unique ability to survive in a harsh world. A large and complex digestive tract needs a large body to house it and so their bodies have evolved to be larger in size to accommodate this adaptation over time.
For any species of animal the ability to secure sufficient nutrients is of paramount importance. As an animal with hindgut fermenting capability the horse has great flexibility evolutionally in terms of food sources. When horses are faced with abundant nutritious feed choices the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems associated with the digestive tract of the horse downregulate intake and as a result feed passage rate through the tract slows down. When horses are faced with poor forage options their feed intake naturally increases and the rateofpassage or the speed at which the feed moves through the digestive tract