Table of contents for Practical Horseman Extra Volume 19 in Practical Horseman

Does your horse struggle with trot lengthenings? Does he quicken his tempo or break into canter instead of taking bigger steps? Not all horses are gifted with natural, balanced trot lengthenings. But every horse can learn to produce them, to a certain degree, given thoughtful training, clear, consistent use of the leg aids and patience. One of the first lessons we teach horses is that “leg means go,” which they initially interpret to mean: “Move your feet!” In the next stage of training, we ask them to engage their hind legs—to flex their stifles and hocks more so their hind legs step farther underneath their bellies. This enables them to push off more energetically and take bigger steps without speeding up the tempo. To learn how to do this on…

Amino acids are a hot topic in today’s equine nutrition. They are the vital biological building blocks that link together in the horse’s body to create proteins, which form everything from muscle tissue to organ tissue as well as enzymes, hormones and antibodies. “Aside from water, protein is the most abundant molecule in the body,” says Middle Tennessee State University associate professor Holly Spooner, PhD. “All tissue is made from protein. But it is perhaps the most misunderstood essential nutrient.” Horse owners tend to focus on crude protein, which, she explains, is actually just an estimate of the amount of protein in a feed product based on how much nitrogen is present (since nitrogen is much more abundant in protein than in other nutrients). “But that doesn’t exactly tell the…