Your horse’s skin is a huge and complex organ that serves as a barometer for his inner health.

We tend to think of a horse’s skin as just the envelope that contains all the important stuff. But the skin is an organ–the largest one your horse possesses. And its importance to his overall health is, frankly, staggering.

The skin is the first line of defense between your horse’s delicate innards and the hostile environment surrounding them. It protects the rest of the body from physical injury and invasions from insects, microorganisms, and poisons.

It helps regulate the horse’s body temperature. Too hot and the sweat glands activate, exuding moisture that evaporates on the skin to cool the horse. Too cold and the millions of individual hair shafts all over the animal’s body raise to fluff up the coat and help trap warm air between the shafts, improving his comfort and reducing the risk of hypothermia.

Skin also prevents the body from dehydrating, helps excrete waste products through sweat, manufactures vitamin D from sunlight, and even emanates pheromones that function as sexual attractants to other horses