page_title: Eri-Aaroni
section_title: Breeding career and influence
hierarchical_section_title: Eri-Aaroni / Breeding career and influence
caption_attribution_description: This file was uploaded with Commonist. Ravikuningatar title winner 9 years old I.P. Vipotiina, driven by Pertti Puikkonen, dashes towards a win and a new Finnish record of Finnhorse mares.
context_page_description: Eri-Aaroni 3423 Valio was liver chestnut stallion who was a Ravikuningas title winner in harness racing and a very influential Finnhorse sire.
  During his racing career, Eri-Aaroni became the holder of the Finnish harness racing speed record, a tähtijuoksija Being both a race horse and more noble and refined in appearance than most Finnhorses of the time, he did not conform to the contemporary working horse ideals, and never gained great success at horse shows. Nonetheless, In 1946, the horse breeding association of Laihia purchased Eri-Aaroni to stand at stud for the unpreceded price of two million Finnish marks. In Laihia, he sired hundreds of foals, of whom 22 were tähtijuoksija and five Kuninkuusravit title winners. Today, Eri-Aaroni is found in the pedigree of the majority of modern Finnhorses.
context_section_description: During Eri-Aaroni's life, the official goal of Finnish horse breeding was to produce work horses. Eri-Aaroni's looks were "foreign", and although he did well in the obligatory pulling tests, he was not given any mentionable success in horse shows. In 1936, Eri-Aaroni was evaluated in a studbook inspection and accepted with the working section registration number 3423. The evaluation points awarded for him did not qualify him for even the lowest level prize. In 1939 he was re-evaluated and awarded with a third level prize. The best show success Eri-Aaroni gained as an individual was a second prize in 1946, when he had already proven his talent both as a record-breaking racehorse and a sire.
  After the Continuation War ended in 1944, parts of Kirkkonummi were rented by the Soviet Union to host a military base, and Eri-Aaroni was evacuated again. He ended up in Porvoo, and finally in Nastola. From his time in Åland, he had sired about 300 foals. In 1946 the horse breeding association of Laihia made an offer to purchase him from Buttenhoff, despite the fact that the horse population in Laihia was already widely influenced by his sire, Murto. Buttenhoff agreed to sell as he had become disabled by rheumatoid arthritis, and Räikkönen, the groom and trainer of Eri-Aaroni, was planning to become a farmer. Multiple horse breeding associations had expressed interest to purchase the stallion, but Buttenhoff chose to sell to Laihia because he heard the mare population of Laihia was of high quality. Eri-Aaroni was sold for 2 000 000 Finnish marks, corresponding to c. 680 000 Euros. It was the highest price ever paid for a horse in Finland.
  Eri-Aaroni proved to be successful at stud. During his first breeding season in Laihia, his pregnancy rate was 75.2 percent. He was accurate in detecting whether a mare was in oestrus or not, and did not attempt to serve pregnant mares. However, he also was uninterested in serving nursing mares, which was problematic. During the busiest peaks of breeding seasons Eri-Aaroni had to serve mares as often as every three hours, but as he ate well, he did not grow weak.
  In Laihia, Eri-Aaroni sired dozen of foals each year, and more than 200 during the best years. His stud fee was exceptionally high, 15 000 marks, corresponding to about 5000 Euros. He sired more than 1100 offspring, of which 73 became suur-, 24 huippu-, and 22 tähtijuoksija. Of his first generation offspring, 4 stallions and 1 mare became winners of Kuninkuusravit titles; 6 stallions and 11 mares were made breeding champions; 167 stallions and 381 mares were accepted for the Finnhorse studbook. In state horse shows, Eri-Aaroni was finally rewarded when three times he was granted the first prize for his offspring. In 1952 he was one of the first horses to ever receive the title of a breeding champion. His influence in the Finnhorse breed remained significant, and by the 1990s, more than 90 percent of Finnhorses were descended from him via one or more lines.
  In 1952 the previously healthy and strong Eri-Aaroni suffered from colic a few times, although with good treatment he recovered well. However, in August 1953 he came down with a particularly dramatic case, which was further complicated by laminitis. Eri-Aaroni died in September 1.
caption: I.P. Vipotiina (pictured leading) is a seventh-generation paternal line descendant of Eri-Aaroni and one of the many Kuninkuusravit title winners descending from him
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