How do you know which horses to keep?

Hey y'all ^^ I'm EagleWings, I'm really new to the game. I've picked up about 4 horses, three of them are of showing age, and the third I bought as a foal because I had heard that buying them younger gives you more time to build stats. I'm still formulating my strategy for the game and coming up with the regulations for my program. I was wondering what y'all are doing with your own stables in terms of deciding which horses to keep and which ones to drop off at the rescue center or sell. Like do you have a certain age of horse (like 4 or 5?) where if they haven't placed in X amount of shows, they aren't worth keeping? How do you decide which ones are "worth it" for you personally?

Any and all tips are appreciated ^^ Thanks for your help!

Most of my horses currently are either foundations or lined horses that I have a lot of attachment to. I won't be selling them off anytime soon lol.

I don't really enter my horses in shows unlesss they're on the top of their group, so what really decides it for me is stats. The showing really depends on how low the horses non specialty stats are. I mostly don't buy any horses from people, just stick with my own foundies for the most part, but when I sell, I sell the horses that won't really fit into my breeding program. I have to ensure that their stats are good and everything cus if i don't want the horse, others may not want them either

welcome to the game!

i personally keep all of mine that i buy from other players, but that's because i buy only horses i know i want to keep.

if i buy EC horses (which i often do) i keep only the ones that have good conformation and the rest i dump in the RC. then i raise those i've chosen until they retire, regardless of how they do in shows.

since showing results depend so much on where the horse is in the stat range for their grade, making choices based on that won't always be an accurate representation of the horse's future showing potential.

I have set criteria for stats, confo, and other things, and I buy pretty much any horse I find that meets all my requirements. Whenever I max out my horse limit, I make the criteria more strict and sell the horses that no longer meet it, unless I want to keep them for breeding because of a rare color or uncommon pedigree. That way I'm continually refining my herd to meet my goals.