HGG Community Forums

This thread (https://hj2.huntandjump.com/forum/discussion/87646/bootstrapping-tips#Item_11) I found very useful for starting to understand bootstrapping!

For benchmarks, I'll explain it using even bred horses since I feel this is easiest.

Let us say that we have a herd of horses, all red papered foundations, bred to a B papered stud. We get 3 colts out of this that pass SBA. Colt 1, colt 2, colt 3. Colt 1 comparison tests About as Good As their sire, with Colt 2 and 3 testing Superior to. Colt 1, however, tests "About as good as" colt 2, but tests "Not as good as" Colt 3. This shows that there is a slight difference in breeding ability, since comparison testing "ABOUT as good as" means that they're in the same ballpark, but not identical. All 3 colts are better producers than their sire, however colt 3 is the best out of them all.

This makes Colt 3 a benchmark. They are your best tested of that generation and in the future most horses will be tested against this colt to see if they are good enough to keep or to even replace said benchmark. This is especially useful in the case of buying outside studs. If you cull severely and rely heavily on benchmarks, you can get gold/star horses by Gen 4 I think it is.

For keeping horses for bootstrapping, I never look at PT. I always look at an increase in papering. I allow the horse to have the same paper as their dam (usually the lower papered one), but their foal must have one level higher. For example, lets say I bred a star to a red mare and get a red papered filly. I will keep her, and bootstrap her again, however I will only keep Blue or gold fillies and any others will be altered. As I get more blues and golds, I'll cull any reds I am using. And as I get a good amount of golds, the blues will go too.

Boosting comes into play when we start to reach the natural limit of the game. The breeding ability/PT does have a cap. However you can boost horses slightly over this cap, which is how we end up with 14PT horses. I think that cap is around 12-13PT, I want to say in the 12 range. I am not entirely sure where the cap is, someone else will have to pop in for certainty.

For whatever boost you want to use, it'll be dependent on how much you want to spend I feel. You can buy boosts with HBs/IVs, but of course the 5% boost is quite expensive. You can also buy these with real money too.

Hopefully this helps answer some more of your questions, if you have any more please ask. Sorry for taking so long to get back to you, December was a blur

@ObsidianKitsune thank you so much! You indeed did answer a good portion of my questions.

@SolandisStables

Bootstrapping is one "goal" of the game. You can bootstrap just for PT and ignore color, you can try to have the highest PT fantasy horse, the highest PT xyz color horse, highest PT draft, etc, etc. It is, completely up to what you (the player) like, so there isn't a one size fits all for bootstrap.

The general idea is, take a high PT stud (because those are easier to find) and breed it to lower PT mares in hopes of getting higher PT foals. Such as, a 15 PT stud and a 10PT mare might make a few 12 to 13 PT horses. But breeding 10 Pt horses over and over might take a few extra months or longer to hit that 12 or 13 PT cap. This in a sense, is using the higher PT stud to "boost" the PT of your horses. Higher PT horses usually show longer before leveling off (general rule of thumb is a 10Pt horse will level off around age 10, a 12 PT horse around age 12, etc) the longer they show before leveling off, the more points they earn.

Now, some people run breeding advice on their bootstrap, and many do not, again, that is a preference for you. I do not run breeding advice on many, but only keep the highest PT's based on my own personal "cut off".

A benchmark horse is usually used only when running breeding advice, you can compare a foal to its parent to see if it is better, the same, or worse. The catch is many horses who are boosted with a 1 or 5% boost, none of their foals will pass breeding advice or test as good as their parents without their own boost.

Boosting I think comes in later when you have an established show herd and want to push the limits of what you can produce.

As far as what PT is too low to keep, I would say your first season, see what you get. If all your foals are between 12 and 12.5, then only keep the mares that are 12.3 and above (just for example). Only keep a stud if his PT is higher than your original bootstrap stud. Eventually, your mares might get higher and higher, and then you can keep anything 13 and above for breeding, the rest get snipped and into the show herd, etc etc. If you have barn space, keep everything you can.

Good luck and happy to help answer any other questions you might have.

*Taking lots of notes* thanks!

Oh, wow. How many times has anyone boosted, cloned and boosted? Seems like not only would it be expensive but also neverending...Is there a boosted cap pt? As in you're only able to boost, clone and boost to ie 15? After that is it mute?

Ok. I heard through the grapevine there are threads about benchmarks? Anyone have a link?