Straight from the horse’s stomach
Horses are highly-adapted performance animals, but one unexplained adaption – a very delicate gastrointestinal tract – is their Achilles heel.
Like humans, horses’ stomachs contain acid to digest and break down their food and mucus to protect the stomach wall against the acid. But for a vaguely inexplicable reason, horses do not have mucus on the top half of their stomachs. This causes all sorts of issues, including gastric ulcers.
In fact, gastrointestinal diseases are the leading cause of death in horses.