A foal of Salla Koskio

Over the years we’ve had around ten horses with my husband Rauno Lahdenperä. Currently we have 5 horses, 4 of which are trotters and one of them is a breeding mare. She is foaling very soon.

We use complementary feeds daily as a supplement to their basic diet for many reasons. For example, to support the general well-being, fast recovery and to improve resilience. We have also given various vitamin supplements, including vitamin C, zinc, and copper to treat cough and fever, the flue or glanders. All of these, of course, depend on the disease as well as the horse. We take extra care of vitamin B and E intake after races.

Horses get stressed quite easily from situations like transportation. It has a direct effect on the horse’s digestive system, which also effects their performance. Hence, it’s vey important to take care of the electrolyte balance and a healthy digestive function. In these situations, we’ve used Hoof’s electrolyte and stomach products, like the electrolyte containing Vizyme, which has shown results after just 1-2 weeks after feeding.

Salla Koskio and foal For A Reason

We use Hoof’s multivitamin products that contain enough vitamin B-, E- and C daily, as well as a supportive treatment for various ailments. It’s been nice to be able to give smaller amounts of complementary feeds than usual, since the products have a higher additive content than we’re used to. We’re especially fond of Hoof’s Vimix and Equimino products.

Sometimes a horse’s blood count can get high, which may be due to lack of iron. In these cases, Equi-Haemolyn has been a great product, since it balances the blood count levels.

The well-being of a horse’s stomach and intestines is highly important, because the problem usually lies in the gut. These Hoof’s stomach complimentary feeds are simply great. The horses have gladly eaten all of the powders mixed with their food. They smell fruity, and apparently taste good as well. It’s of course very important that no complementary feed remains at the bottom of the bowl. I can definitely recommend Hoof’s products to all horse owners.

I wouldn’t call myself a trainer yet as long as we do this with my husband on the side of our day jobs. Hobby trainer sounds better

All free time is spent with our horses, about 4-5 hours a day. Everybody who lives out on the countryside knows that the job never ends. There’s always a project that should be done alongside everything else.

All our horses have been trotting horses. None of them have yet achieved anything grand, but Heavy Beat has done best so far. Heavy beats record is 12,7ake (2100m autostart) and the owner got around 30,000 euros from it. Out of our own horses, mare Maggie Cloud has been the most successful. She’s been in the Criterium and Derby finals and won the Tammahambo, as well as received the breeder crown at age 3 and 5. Another victory worth mentioning is Mimmi’s Ruusu Satakunta race gold medal.

Maggie Cloud’s miserable appearance improved quickly with proper feeding, and already at two years old she was selected best foal in the Hippos show

As a foal, Maggie Cloud looked so sad and skinny, that I wouldn’t have accepted her in my stable at all. Honestly, she looked a bit pathetic at the time. She was made of just skin, bones, and a pile of hair ‒ but she had an extremely kind nature and was easy to handle. However, my husband liked the foal and bought it, and little by little her kind nature also impressed me. Four years later, she became our rock-hard racehorse, world record mare and a dear co-worker.

Maggie’s miserable appearance improved quickly with proper feeding and right diet. She has never been a very greedy eater, but rather tended to lose weight at every turn. Trotting was really easy for Maggie from the beginning and along with it her physique improved quickly. Immediately after drives she was jogging with the trotting cart for five kilometres without tiring. She didn’t succeed too well at the first starts however, even though she performed well. As the talented horse that she is, after a few starts and usual training, she caught up on the idea and started to prove her abilities.

Two of Maggie Cloud's offspring

Success did not come by itself. At times, a casual trot or a sprint at the finish line was difficult. We sometimes took the mare to the clinic, to a masseuse and various other treatments, but she just didn’t seem to develop the way we hoped. However, just before the Derby qualifications, everything changed. Maggie Cloud’s standard driver Mika Forss came back from a warmup and said that she felt like a completely new horse compared to previous starts. I was of course pleased with the good news but could not have even dreamed about what was to come. Maggie Cloud held a fast pace and at the last meters she sprinted past the leading horse and won with a stunning world record time of 13,8akp (2600m autostart). She definitely hit every goal we had set for her, multiple times over.

I’m just an ordinary amateur trainer that trains horses just like everyone else. A proper diet and care are extremely important, but of course it’s easy to succeed with a good horse. Today Maggie Cloud has four offspring. The picture shows one of them, For A Reason as a young foal.

I can definitely recommend Hoof’s products for all horse owners.