HGG Community Forums

Out of 87 mares, only one passed inspection

Hey @Dje0153!

So, there are sort of 3 or 4 methods people use to approach breeding in this game. Each one has goal, or a reason to use it, but the different methods require different strategies when it comes to testing and what you expect from your foals.

The first method and the one most new players use is just randomly breeding whatever you think is pretty or cool or just have on hand and see what happens. This doesn’t really have any goal or strategy, but it helps you get an idea for how the game works, what you like and what you want to breed for.

The second is called Breeding Even and has two subtypes. When you breed even, you breed “like to like” and are likely to get high percentages of intact foals from these crops. You can breed even by generation (foundation/created horses to each other, then their offspring which are called gen 2 to each other, then gen 3s, etc). Your pedigree page on these horses will have all the oldest ancestors in the same column.

You can also breed even by paper level. This means you breed C papered stallions to yellow mares, Bs to Reds, As to Blues and Stars to Golds. This method is most likely to get you the most intact foals, but also might mean you get bogged down and don’t get much improvement from generation to generation. Often breeding even, whether by generation or paper, will allow you to focus more closely on breeding for specific color combinations because more of your horses will pass testing so you can pick and choose who to keep based on color.

The third method and the one that you currently seem to be using is called Bootstrapping. Bootstrapping usually means you take a really nice high Star stallion and breed him to whatever mares you have laying around, usually random foundation/created mares that are Yellow or Red papered. When you bootstrap you are likely to see quick jumps up from foundation papers to A/Blue and Star/Gold papers over just 2 or 3 generations, much faster than you would usually get with even breeding. You will also see huge jumps up in PT scores, snd this is a great way to get a ton of show ponies to build up your show herd and therefore your show bonus. The catch is that if you BA or SBA your foals, they will all be MUCH worse than their higher papered parent so they will almost always be snipped. The way most people get around this is they only test their colts from these pairings and keep the fillies untested. Usually people breed the fillies back to their dad or to a similar quality stallion until they are happy with how many of the colts are passing testing or whatever benchmark they choose to use and then they start testing their fillies as well. Some people may never BA their fillies from bootstrap herds but just Paper them and keep them based on them having higher papers.

The fourth method of breeding is sort of a cross between Breeding Even and Bootstrapping. It is called Benchmarking. This is usually really work intensive and requires a ton of comparing, so it isn’t usually feasible unless you have a lot of hbs to spend. For benchmarking you usually breed even by generation and then you take the very best stallion you can find in that generation and make him your “Benchmark” and every other colt you keep in that generation has to be as good as your benchmark. If you get a better colt, every new colt has to be as good as your new benchmark. This method gets you faster improvement in your lines than a less stringent method, but it also makes it harder to trade breeding stock or focus on color as a main way to build a herd because usually your pretty foals aren’t your best foals.... believe me I know!

There is no right or wrong way to play, but understanding these 4 methods of breeding will help you know when to test and how to measure your success and also help lower your frustration level!

With bootstrapping testing the horses doesn't help much with growing your herd, however you do know since you did test that the ones who passed BA are phenomenal. I think it is safe to say that I have one of the oldest Bootstrap herds, if not the oldest, and I accidentally BA tested my best of paster foal this season and it instantly spelded, since in BA it encourages the stallion to be at an unattainable quality level when compared to the mare to get foals better than she ever would have produced evenly.Sometimes I will test a new stallion by testing his foals to see if I can get any intacts from him and thus use testing to weed out all but the best, but I keep a known high mare and test my foals to her, spaying everything that tests worse than and keeping the aga foals. If A filly tests superior then obviously I picked a benchmark that was too low and I use the Superior filly as my new benchmark. If I don't want to be doing the tests or I am bringing in a new gene I either keep all the blue+ papers if mares are yellow/ red, or only gold papers if mares are blue. Right now I have a low gold mare I ask fillies with a specific gene to test superior to, though if my top mares can't pass BA then these definitely won't, but I want to get a good amount of these in my herd, having a few generations bak to my high stallions and then I will try them against a high benchmark mare. If there is anything I can do to help let me know!