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So, technically I have 3 lines. My heavy browns, which are as much black and chestnut as they are brown, who get all the genes I like thrown at them. My cherry drop dreams, who are wild bay with DP and a handful of acceptable genes. And my bootstrap, who have no limits on genes or size, but I try to watch white factor.

Honestly, I just pick something to cull for once a month or so. Splash and regular bay are frequent fliers on my chopping block, but sometimes it's weight or pt or some other random thing.

I chose mine on this server, because I love hom DP silver bays. I like the large drafts, but having riding horses and drafts on one account is...difficult. One line or the other is always being put on the back burner. Anyway...my studs.

My originals.


Cinnamon Shots


Pleasure Package

My newest boy, with a gene I've been wanting since I started this account, Ice 9!


CB Twist All Night

At first I bred whatever I felt like then I picked colours I liked in real life. Black and palomino.

A long long time ago (on HJ1 before HJ2 was even a twinkle in Ammits eye) before the horses had the full body pictures they have now (I always get confused if head shots or paint chips came first but I feel like paint chips was first.) but there was a little square of colour and the horses genetics would be blended together to produce a colour like mixing paint in a can. I love blue so set out to breed the bluest paint chips I could and settled on Grullo. I was also trying for chocolate palomino but there wasn’t a very good selection of genes to really turn the chips chocolatey like there are now.

I ran the 3 lines for years but after a while found it too much work because I didn’t have a good naming system and couldn’t just go and sort all the foals together without accidentally clearing out a different line. Feeling overwhelmed I decided to drop the palomino line for its lack of chocolate and blend the black and grullos together into one line. Eventually I switched over to straight Grullos with different white patterns.

I find when I get overwhelmed I need to reduce my herd into more manageable directions. At one time I was feeling like I was going to leave the game because I wasn’t feeling inspired when I bred any of my horses so I went through my herds and made a list of the genes I really liked and picked 2 I wanted to focus on. HJ1 - KP and Nexus, HJ2 - ice and satin. I also figured out a naming system to highlight the horses with the genes I wanted to focus on and keep my generations organized so I could quickly make breeding matches. My KP, Nexus and Ice herds have grown over the years and I’m starting to be much more strict with what I keep intact. I do still have satin in my herd but it’s not flourishing as much as the others since it’s quite expensive to add and I haven’t really put it on a foundation in forever (maybe not even ever. It could have just been introduced by straws)

Over the years I’ve added lots of different white patterns while keeping the 2 main focuses. This account mostly just breeds different Ice genes all mixed into one line. But on HJ1 my lines have broadened and my KP herd stays mostly separate from my fantasy line but there’s some crossover.

My fantasy line has grown to include axiom RGB and wrong warp, and Plaid. The last few months Phantom, watercolour and chinchilla have also been added but the horses are still young so they haven’t made a dent yet. My fantasy lines I sort of keep separate but have crossover until there’s enough to have their own pasture in a generation.

I have six total accounts between the two servers, each with a different breeding goal (and one that also has a bootstrap line), because I couldn't decide on just one thing and didn't have the patience to wait to do multiple things on one account. >.> Decisions are hard! I've also changed the goals on two of those accounts, and restarted with the same goals but even breeding on two lol.

Like Cheers, my lines have changed over the years. The first definite line I had was champagne splash Appaloosas, now long defunct. Then it was like, I like it so I have a line for it. At one time I had 9 or 10 lines, but I started combining them together because keeping up with that many was overwhelming. I do have a strict culling method, which is occasionally painful, but it keeps breeding animals to a manageable level. When new genes roll out, I try to add it to an existing line. But I did start a new line recently because I have wanted watercolor and nexus for a bit. My lines are
1. Brown buckskin splash M gulastra plume appaloosas
2. Pearl gulastra plume white 10 appaloosas
3. Liver mushroom kit promoter appaloosas
4. Liver non dun white 3 kit promoter appaloosas
5. Chinchilla onyx
6. Plaid sabino 2 kit promoter 2 phantom autumn no dilute
7. Snowflake gulastra plume kit promoter
8. And the newest one is tobiano watercolor nexus phantom bats ice
After typing it out I see my lines have crept up in numbers again, so 1 and 2 might get combined as well as 3 and 4 :)

Well, I have a few genes-based lines that I plan to eventually (like, very far down the road) bring together. So currently I’m working on making even-bred lines in all of them, and using SBA and then PT to cull for the ideals.

I also have two performance-based lines: my bootstrap herd, which is exclusively shooting for high PT, no matter how unevenly bred, or what the foals look like (though most of them are silver and white at this point, due to one of my beginner star stallions being ZZ). The other performance-based line is my Exceptionally Perfect line, where all foundations are ExPerf HHs, and I have very strict papering guidelines (2nd gen must be blue, 4th gen must be gold/star). I use these two performance lines to pad my stables with high-quality horses who will be good for showing (in the case of my bootstrap herd) or breeding and adding to other lines to help boost their papers (in the case of my ExPerf horses).

I do also have a pasture that’s just “pretties” I couldn’t bring myself to speld...a lot of my uneven leopard Appaloosas go in there, and I have a star stallion at stud to make for adequate show horses.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to the individual...I wanted to add mushroom and chinchilla to my herds, but it was just too much. The lines I have now essentially max out my mental capacity. Some people have breeding herds 10x the size of mine...some have herds 1/10th the size of mine. I feel like it all comes down to what we can handle. That being said, I have tossed some lines (my nexus attempt, namely) because breeding those pastures didn’t get me giddy with excitement...and for all the greatness of this game, it’s still just a game :) and should be fun! So if I’m not absolutely gung-ho about a line (even if I’ve dedicated a lot of effort to it) I just let it go.