Anybody else? :/ *showing*

I know figuring out a successful showing routine is hard, but I know most players have agreed the 5 shows/5 riding school slots a day is usually the safest way to go. I have tried that method using soonest for shows, using highest entries for shows, using cheapest for shows, and I have tried throwing most of my showers into 10 full shows using the same three options and I just can't get anything stable. 

My main showers are my foundation Clydesdales and Friesians with the exception of a few of my projects. Usually each and every of my Clydes and Friesians will place in AT LEAST one of their shows every single time, but more often more than once. Well, I was taking a look through my bank records just now, and saw something I'm really not happy with. 



Ridiculous. I looked at my show results for that day and NONE of my Clydesdales had placed in anything, which is obviously not right...maybe a bug? I don't know. All of my showers are equipped with 5/5 tack and I never have gone a day where horses haven't placed at all. Especially not my Clydes, they all place more than my Friesians. 

What is up with showing? 75% of the time my horses place they gain no stats. And yes, that's trying different showing options, switching up the numbers between riding school slots/show slots, you name it. I want to just give up on showing and throw all of my horses in riding schools as I clearly get a better income from it than showing, and my horses at least get stats from it. But I do want to have higher points, good placings, etc. to build good lines as these are my foundations and are pretty important for the generations that will come, but I'm just at a loss. 

I even have a specific project horse, Dream On, who is ALWAYS placing in all 10 of her shows each day, she's amazing, but lately no matter what option for showing I've been using, she isn't even getting stats from her placings. 

I don't have time nor patience to hand pick shows. I know there are some of you with 200+ horses who hand pick shows but I just don't have that kind of time to sit around and do that all day. 

Is anybody else bummed out with their showing is situation? Any ideas on what can help? be improved? what to do? *sigh*

To succeed in showing, you have to understand the system and have a decent horse. In the novice levels foundation horses do okay, but once they get to local and start competing with lined horses they tend to fall behind. Why? Because foundations and low gen. horses have high non-permanent stats in non-discipline areas.

I took a look at some of your clydes, and the issue mentioned above is your problem. Grades are split so only horses within a 50 stat range compete against each other (in the lower grades), it’s the overall stats that count when reaching a new grade. But! in showing only discipline stats are considered.For driving this means endurance and strength.
 So when your clyde Paranoia, with 282 overall stats and 114 of these split in non-discipline areas (spd, agi, int), compete with my Jarplitfara ('cause she's the same grade and have competed in the same shows I know) with 281 overall stats and only 57 stats split in a non-discipline area, - which one do you think will win? When showing, only 168 of Paranoia’s stats count, while 224 of Jarplitfara’s count.

Also, if a competition has less than 5 entrants, the show will not give out stats.

Last edited on 2017-07-08 at 01:22:36 by Dratini

Everything Dratini says is correct. 
In addition, Dream On is being fed haycubes. While they raise stats faster, they also give non-discipline stats, which will hurt her showing potential for the reasons Dratini listed. She's also just barely in her current showing level with her 451 stats. The horses she's competing against will have between 450 and 499 stats, and it's probable that the horses that are beating her have higher overall stats AND lower non-discipline stats.

My foundation method (which has thus far gotten my foundies to 950+ stats by retirement, so i'd say it's pretty effective), is to enter all my horses in riding school unless they're within ~10% of the top of their showing level. I avoid wasting show fees on horses that are incredibly unlikely to place and I guarantee earning both money and (probably)stats.

Ive actually never heard of the 5/5 method. I might test it out with future generations if others have lots of success with it, but for now the handpicking of top 10% to show and then hand selecting (rather than auto-showing, this makes a HUGE difference) has been working out really well for me :)

Last edited on 2017-07-08 at 06:19:01 by ᴋᴀʜᴢɪᴇ ɪ

Again, agreeing with what Dratini said--and Kahzie added good points.

Another thing I do (which requires hand-entering) is try to put my horses in shows with only 4 other entrants. This makes them the 5th horse and gives me much better odds of placing.

I don't split my herd; they are either in shows all the time, or riding school--I'm just careful about how I enter. You can see the difference in that show history in some of my foundation or second gen horses compared to those with slightly longer lineage--whose non-specialty stats are also significantly lower.

The best way to get good results for shows is to make sure your horses have under 60 non-specialty stats. Most of my Tekes have 60 non-specialty stats or lower, and do amazing in shows (even in local).
There is also the fact that some of your horses just recently joined a certain level.
If you compete with a horse who literally just joined the L1 level from an N5, its going to do bad compared to those who have done L1 longer. Why? Because they have more stats. That is usually when I put my horses into riding shows. (Either that or I have too many horses with not enough shows)