HGG Community Forums

I remove my studs ONLY each month. They get shown year round. Mares enter pasture, and remain there until I pull them out at 17/18 years, or when I shuffle things around.

(ETA: I forgot about the new pasture change for mares! I'll be removing and showing my mares going forward for SURE! I'm sitting at 56k/day show bonus, which is higher than the goal was for this fall, I thought I'd barely hit 35k, so what I've been doing is definitely working! I also make SOOO many ExPerf foundations with my herd helpers, so they tend to show unless I need them as well.)

In terms of replacements, I require ALL my breeding stock to pass SBA and be Superior To Parent. The only exception would be my upper gens when I reach the breeding cap naturally, and my bootstraps (who I dont really do anything with except for make higher PT show foals).

To become an elect for a new herd sire, the colt must test Superior To Sire, and test As Good As or better than, the benchmark for that Gen. I then look at the genes. I will easily sell a new potential herd sire and replace him with something more sparkly or have genes I prefer. I'm also not butthurt if I dont produce any new herd sires. I keep 2 extra for each gen to rotate out. Instances where there are two studs exactly the same that I cant choose, I allow PT to do for me. I keep the higher number. Not that it matters, but it is just kind of another thing to try to keep my numbers manageable.

I'm sitting with 7 full pages of stock for sale right now. Lol majority of them being foals.

As far as sorting goes, I put backgrounds on those that I hand sort and "name" (more like label). When they hit 2 years, I add on mane and tail. Then they go to their according pastures. Very rarely do I ever resell something I've already decided to keep.

I'm also a fantasy gene person and I tend to really like most of mine to have some sparkle. Which limits my potential sales... but improves the eye appeal for me to look at. So while I may have some very high quality stock in terms of paper and PT combos, not many are able to be used by folks from the gene combos. Others do not do well in other herds because I ONLY use Red/B paper foundations as a starting point. I also cull off all Red/B papered G2s. My G4 herd MUST be Gold/Star. So my market is pretty darn small. And I need to do some major calculating in terms of my expenses as I sort foals. I spend MUCH more than I should testing the foals I plan on selling.

Grab pointed creates where you can, alter them, and show them twice per week.
Purchase high-PT foals from auction, alter them if they aren't, and show them twice per week.
Altering a horse gives it a training bonus, so it will do better in shows than an unaltered horse.
Keep an eye on the Contests and Games section of the forum, there are often contests there where you can pick up good show horses.
I was playing for about a real-time year before I decided where I wanted to go with my lines, and in the 2.5 years I've been playing I've changed my mind and restructured my herds several times. :) So feel free to play with colors, let those mares live in the pasture so they get that breeding bonus, and don't be afraid to just dump everything and start over when you're bored or you find something you like better.

How are you doing on show horses? I'm sure I have a few that could find a new home with you. :)

The best show horses always seem to sit between 10-11 pt or 13+ pt. You make a certain amount of money by showing your horses daily. The higher pointed your horses, the more money they make you. You can check your daily amount on the front page under performance overview.

For instance my show horses make me 721k per day. Because I have my show barns alternating the days they show I have horses showing every day of the week. If you want to take a look these are my 9 year old show horses sorted by their total points. You can easily see the high pts make me a good chunk. These horses are still not leveled off and haven’t reached their full potential as show horses:

https://hj2.huntandjump.com/adv_search.php?runsearch=go&jump=0&agee=9&f_adv=points_py&stallion=0&mare=0&owner=41017&128=0&129=0&145=0

As far as bootstrapping by goes…it’s a great way to make show horses and I wished I had started earlier. Let me know if you are looking for a bootstrap stud I’ve got tons sitting around doing nothing.

I’m constantly changing And evolving my genetics. I started with champagnes, moved to black livers, moved to pearl, moved to high white…moved to fantasy.

Believe it or not I’m constantly running out of money, haha. Literally no self control when it comes to boosting/playing with gmts. ^_^ most people don’t spend too much but I go overboard so I have a huge show herd to compensate.

I’ll send you a pm for boys.

Also there are zero penalties for inbreeding. All bootstraps that I know of are inbred.

I'll chime in lol. Have you been able to get your basic upgrade yet? If not, I highly recommend it. It's 30 IVs for a years subscription. I wouldn't know what to do if I had to go back to a free account lol. Just the auto train alone makes it worth it. If you haven't, just holler at me, I can help.
I just wanted to give a bit of info on pasture mares that's a recent game change. So long as you don't leave your mares out of pasture overnight, they won't lose that pasture bonus. So pop them out, train and show real quick, and pop them back in. You get extra show points, and your mares still build bonus for breeding. I work with very limited pasture space, 100 horses stay in pasture at all times, which hurts me as a boot strapper, not many getting that bonus, but I have a boat load of mares that have a lifetime of shows so they're earning their keep. I run two 1k stall barns of spay/gelds, my bread and butter. But I also have 3 more 1k's slap full of broodmares and a handful of smaller barns as well. Pretty much every horse shows here. All that just to say don't get discouraged and think your mares and studs can't make you money as well, they just do it a bit slower than the spelds.
It takes time to get really good and rolling with this game. I've been playing 3 years and just now feel like I'm getting settled in and have things figured out. Then I'll learn something new lol. When I first started playing it took way longer though. Ammit has done an awesome job making things easier for newer players.
As far as BA, run it. It pays off in the end. You can always breed em again next year and maybe have better luck. The only ones here that don't see BA are my boot mares. And they do once I think my stock is improving or I need to cut numbers down lol.
Just play around, use search to check out everything and find what you like. Once you see it, you'll know. There's a thousand different ways of approaching this game, as far as goals and what you want to do/breed. And none of them are wrong. Even, bootstrap, damage makers, breed by quality, by color, create/breed/auction, it's all up to you and what you have in mind. And you can change your mind anytime you like. The most important thing is to have fun!

@pestilenttempest the boys you gave me are absolutely dreamy, thank you again! I'm trying to figure out who to start with.

@blackwyld thank you again for all the information you sent me! I'm still reading through it (took a break to go RL riding and all I could think about was my pretend horses lol) but it's all been really informative so far!

@windigo yes! Someone was kind enough to gift me the money to upgrade, and someone else gifted me what I needed to buy a larger barn. I've also received so many gifts of show horses and now breeders, and everyone was so wonderful about picking up my creates as well to help me out with money. I was raving about the community to my family last night, they might think I've gone a little bonkers lol. Also thank you so much for the tip about pulling mares out of pasture and training and showing before sending them back in. I was a little sad to be losing that bonus, it's good to know that I don't have to. I've definitely found a good handful of genes that I love already and also a few fantasy genes that I'm planning on working towards eventually. But I feel like I have to pick something to focus on or I'll just make a mess out of things. It's good to be reminded that it's just fine to have a mish mash of everything.

@seaswell I'll check them out, thank you!