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A few months ago, I took 3-4 months off from breeding my later gens with the specific focus of improving the quality in gens 2-4. When I did return to breeding my higher gens, it was much smoother and I enjoyed it a lot more! It's ok to take a break, you don't have to breed everything or keep everything if you don't want to!

As far as show horses go, when I cull I cull horses who have finished their training (age 11-12-ish) and who are making less than 7-8 points in a month.

I hope you find a system that makes breeding satisfying and enjoyable!

I’m going through the same transition phase. I’m still breeding basically anything and everything at higher gens because that’s where I get my good show ponies. I yum anything inconsistent or with less than 10.5 PT.

For my breeding stock, I’m getting rid of studs that don’t fit, and mares that won’t produce what I want when crossed with my studs (For example, I’m working towards dark bay sabinos. I’ll keep sooty black sabino mares because the foal can pick up the bay from dad). Because of this, I’m yumming a huge percent of my second Gen foals because they didn’t get the right genes and the PT is usually in the 10.2 range.

I’m still pretty early in my transition, but I’m seeing some improvement with my upcoming breeding stock.

ETA: My breeding stock must test better than the parent, if not a paper level higher. Sometimes I let AGA slip by if I really like their colour, but I usually end up snipping them after a couple seasons because they don’t produce the quality I want.

Ok so back when i started in 2015, there was very little in the way of shiny/fantasy genes. Satin was ridiculously expensive. So i just bought cheap horses that i thought looked pretty and bred them. For the most part i did well with breeding foundations together but i had no organization, no quality control, only a free account doing hand breeding, etc. I was breeding yellow papered offspring because they were "too pretty" to geld or spay. It was an absolute mess. I decided to slowly start introducing structure. I gelded and spayed everything that i didn't want to breed. I have changed tactics many times over the years. I believe it was 2 years ago when I finally said "screw it" and spayed over 500 mares that did not meet my current breeding requirements (mind you bulk altering did not exist then). I kept EVERYTHING as show ponies. Nowadays, 5 years later, i am beyond strict in my breeding criteria. My foundation studs are mostly A papered with the exception of my Nexus line which are B papered (absolutely NO C or Yellow anymore besides one stud who will age out soon). I snip EVERYTHING that does not meet even the slightest of expectations. I only have 1000 stalls barns now, nothing smaller (a difficult task if you don't have the hbs... do NOT do what I did and sell off all your smaller barns to buy the 1000 stall ones because it took me 3 months or more to get the 6000 horses out of my primary barn and i couldn't breed during those months :)) ). I would say, if you really want to start over, start by choosing your studs. Once you do that, only keep the mares you want for each stud intact. Everything else gets the snip and put into the show herd.

As for show ponies, i cull at 10 and 15. By 10 years old, they MUST have 500+ points. Anything less than 500 points gets tossed into the auction. At 15 years old, they MUST have 1000+ points or they get auctioned. I go through at the start of each season and bulk auction everything that doesn't meet those requirements :)

Feel free to ask me any questions here or in pm! Happy to share my breeding stock cull requirements if interested! Just be patient because changing things around is a lengthy and time consuming process! It will take a while!

I've recently combined all my lines into one huge herd. Mostly because i wasn't satisfied with the quality in my 2 small lines. The problem was because i had A papered foundation studs in the main line and used a lot of yellow mares, occasionally C studs in the other two. I went through all my 2 gen mares from the 2 small lines and snipped anything that wasn't Superior to an exceptional (Red) mare, even if their dam was yellow. The 3 gens had to be AGA a Blue foundation mare, i tried for Superior, but that would have left too few mares. 4 gen had to be AGA a Blue mare that is AGA a Gold, again, i wanted AGA Gold, but it would've been too few mares. This culled just over 50% of the mares in those lines, any withh close to 500 points or more became a show horse. I culled most of the stallions from the 2 small lines except the foundation boys and have been using the very best studs from the main line on those mares. A couple more seasons and the 2 small lines should be at the same level as the main line with getting Star/Gold 3 Gens. When that happens, i might seperate them again into fansty gene and a non-fantasy gene but maintain the same strictness. Haven't decided yet.

As for show horses, i pretty much keep all of them. I do a small cull for 10+yr olds and remove any that don't have a certain amount of points, which changes each season depending on how much room i want for yearlings. Aside from that, i keep all horses until they pass.

If you have some lined horses you really like the looks of and/or have sentimental value but aren't up to par quality wise, you could consider using much higher quality outside blood to boost the next generation a bit. For example, if you have a handful of red 4th generation mares that you're really attached to, you could use a Star 4th gen stud (even better if sired by a Star 3rd gen). Dont SBA/BA the offspring, just keep the fillies that are superior to their dams. That would make your 5th gen better than if you used your normal 4th gen stud. Something to consider for those extra special sentimental ones.

A while ago I got very bored with the game, not because of how it ran but because of how I played it. I ended up leaving the game for about 18 months. When I came back I had a much better idea of how I wanted my stock to be. I completely sold everything to start again. Now I keep every horse I breed unless they sell, if they don’t they get shipped and put in the show barn. Doing this has meant that my show bonus went from 5k (after playing for 2 years and focusing only on breeding) to 10k in just over 4 months. I also sold back all my small barns and bought bigger ones.
I am now also very strict with my lines, I made 3 new studs with all my favourite genes on, two C papered and 1 B papered. For each gen they must either paper higher or comp test higher that their parents/ predecessors before them. I am now back to loving the game and I can’t wait to get 3rd gen going