Lately I've gotten a lot of people to question me about how to know if their horse is getting enough to eat.  A simple way is to determine if you can see any ribs or can feel them. Horses are like people, some have a hight metabolism, while others have a slower one.  Horses that are worked harder usually need more feed intake than those sitting out in the pasture not doing anything.  And those that are in the extreme cold weather also need more calories in order to keep the weight to make it through the winter. 
In order to determine if your horse is getting enough, try and see his ribs. You should be able to just see 3 of his ribs and feel 5.  If you see more than 5, then he isn't getting enough calories.  If you can't see any ribs and cant feel any, then your horse needs some calories cut out of his diet.  This is something to monitor on a daily basis, as it's more difficult to see and feel ribs in the winter with a lot of winter hair.  winter is especially hard on them, and along with feed, you must always remember to have

The world of tack.  How great tack is.  I love tack. However, it's not what it's all made out to be. When we buy tack at a tack store, the way it comes is the way we expect it to work on the horse.  How about an instruction booklet with the tack.  I still haven't seen one.  I've also seen whole bridles in the tack store put together wrong.  I know it, but how many other people know it?  Or how about what certain pieces are for?   Unless someone knows what it does, how should they know they should buy it.  Now it's not the tack manufacturers problem that people don't do their homework ahead of time, but is it really the buyer's problem that there's no instruction booklet?  I think it's a little of both.  People need to be informed of how a piece of tack works before purchasing it, and the manufactuer needs to let the publis know how it work too. So before you buy that piece of tack, know how it works, what it does, what the outcome should be, and how to adjust/fit it so that it is the best for your horse.

When  a horse picks up a lead, most people think that the horse will pick up the "correct" lead, but what is the "correct" lead? What if I want a counter canter, then the "wrong" lead becomes the "correct" lead.  Another questoin arises about when the rider puts his/her leg back, the horse should move it's hindquarters over, but how does a person teach a horse that?  Most novice riders have no idea that behind the cinch means move the hips over, and thus they don't teach their horses to move it's butt around.  By teaching the horse to move it's hips, thus helps teach the horse to pick up the correct lead. The horse needs the lope/canter to start witht the hips and then the front end comes.  But which way do the hips need to go?  The right lead would require the rider to put his/her left leg back and thus asking the horse's hips to move to the right.  This would be opposite for the left lead.  The opposite leg should be open (or away from the horse) or can be up by the shoulder, to help push the shoulder in the opposite direction.  This takes a lot of practice and time of working on moving the hips and picking up the lead.  It won't be an overnight success. Horses that are more athletic will tend to pick up the "correct" lead easier, but most horses are right or left leaded, meaning they prefer one or the other.  Most horses are left leaded or tend to like things to the left, mostly because most of what we as humans do with the horse is mostly all from the left.  WE need to change it up, work from the right.  But I've also had horses that were right leaded as they picked up the right lead all the time.  Sometimes this is due to body build and conformation.  Other times this is caused by training errors, injuries, or lack of knowledge.  If you need help, please seek the help of a professonal.