The horse's digestive system is a long and complex system that ensures that the horse receives enough nutrients from different parts of its body. It is also a very delicate system due to its size and complex nature. With all the different twists and turns involved in the digestion process it is easy for this process to go wrong, which could cause the horse extreme discomfort or even loss of life. The digestion process begins with the grass. To survive a horse needs grass, and to grow grass it needs fertilization, which is provided by waste products from the horse's digestive tract. It's a continuous cycle, and if one didn't have the other to help it grow, it wouldn't thrive as well. So now the cycle begins with gathering food. When a horse bends down to pick up a piece of food it wants to eat, it uses its teeth. Teeth are very important for a horse. A horse uses them to hold the food it is eating and uses its molars to grind the food into many small pieces. Additionally, as the horse grinds the food, the tongue is used to hold the food in place so it doesn't slip in front of the mouth or change position when it doesn't want it. After the horse has properly ground the food it swallows and sends it down the esophagus. The esophagus is one of the simplest parts of the horse's digestion. It's just a passage from your mouth to your stomach made up of rings of muscles that contract and relax to carry food to your stomach. At the bottom of the esophagus is a muscle called the cardiac sphincter. This muscle holds food within the horse's stomach, so if a horse were to suddenly stop eating and run away from... middle of paper......management, it then expels the remains of the undigested food so that more plants can grow. Then an animal eats it and the cycle starts again. It works continuously so that plants and animals receive the right amount of nutrients to survive, so that many more generations can follow. Works Cited Oke, Stacey. 2010. The digestive system of the horse: basics of the structure and function of the equine digestive tract. Retrieved October 2, 2010 http://www.thehorse.com/pdf/factsheets/digestive-tract.pdf2008. Anatomy of the horse digestive system. Retrieved October 2, 2010, http://www.understanding-horse-nutrition.com/horse-anatomy.html2005. Colic. Retrieved October 2, 2010, http://www.ultimatehorsesite.com/info/colic.html2010. How the digestive system works. Retrieved October 2, 2010, http://newrider/Library/Horse_Care/digestion.html