Is there anything I can do?

Can I not lose money each time I choose to show? I'm in the red again because I decided to try my hand at showing for a couple of days in a row and didn't make enough money in the games to cover the cost. I suppose there probably isn't a whole lot I can do but it does kinda make me wonder if maybe my herd sucks more than I thought. :(

If you enter in the shows with less entries you have a higher chance of winning. If you enter a show with 19 or 20 entries than you have a lower chance of winning but you get more experience points that level up your account.

Plus if you enter shows that have a high entry fee andddd few entries you have a higher chance of winning and the winnings will be bigger.

I've been manually picking my shows for my nine horses (tho 2 just retired) and I'm way above the red.

Also I see some of your horses don't have full tack. And you have more horses so idk I'd that plays a part because I'm currently only showing 7 horses

Last edited on 2016-03-01 at 11:51:37 by ✎ Jezarae

i've lost ~$3,000 between my two accounts over the last two days, so i totally understand your frustration! I was losing a ton more, but i've modified my strategy and now seem to be doing passbly well (aka neither making nor losing an extreme amount of money)

first i made sure all my horses were fully tacked with grade five tack
i have autoshow, but i realized that it was placing nearly all of my same-level horses into the same shows - no wonder they were all losing! - so now i select shows individually. this takes a lot more time but has had a definite impact.
i've also started only showing horses that i know do well. if i don't see a horse show up in my activity feed for a day or two, i remove it from my "show string". this is probably a bad long term plan because then that horse is also not gaining stats, but for now it works as i make money. i'm attempting to make up for that by feeding my non-showing horses hay cubes and peppermints (and i'm doing my best to meet the price increase on those things by using solely show and game income)

I may have to try your strategy Kahzie. I actually quit showing in the old EV because I would only do well if I poured tons of money and time into it and it never really seemed to give back. But I suppose that it somewhat realistic? I'm not sure, especially as I'm looking to breed for color and conformation now. :p

What way are you using right now to show? And how many of your herd are you showing, which ones?
Tack is really super worth it in my opinion. Even if you just start with basic level one tack it can help.

I'm making money mostly form my previous high stat horses it seems and some random ones I picked up from the RC. Feeding stat specific treats seems to help also, my top arabs used to be on Peppermints but it's really slowed them down in shows since they're higher statted but with less specialty specific stats so they lose more often than say my TBs who have only been fed Carrots their whole lives.
I have experimented with entering in highest and lowest entries and am still tryong to find the right balance for my string. For now I'm working with all of my lines in lowest entries (which means they don't often get stats but do get lots of points and money, while it can cost a bit more) and then the random horses in my z divisions in cheapest for the least cost since many are stores or have liw stats.

All that said. If you plan to focus mostly on confo and color you don't really need to show. I still reccommend treating because to sell horses most people still look at stats, but if I remember right points no longer pass down to offspring so the only reason s to show are to make points and money, or stats, but only if you have a good horse and more than 5 entries in your shows.
Maybe take a look and try out some of the less popular disciplines for showing if you have some horses to do that with (I think Dressage and Western are still the most popular driving is getting up there the discipline I see the least of when buying is Racing)
In any case good luck! I hope you can find a strategy that works for you.

Thanks Sab! I'm probably just going to fiddle around with it until I hit a point where I either find something that works or I don't :p LOL

Something to take into account - if you horse is in the lower end of the stat range for its bracket, it won't show as well. Maybe put that horse in the lower priced shows until it gains more stats, and put the horses in the higher end in higher priced shows.

For example, a N1 horse with 149 stats will show better than a N2 horse with 151 stats.

Also, as I believe was mentioned, horses with stats concentrated on a certain specialty (such as strength and endurance for pulling, or speed and agility for jumping) will show better than a horse with the same number of overall stats, but spread out across the board.

Upgraded tack makes a huge difference. I would recommend investing as much as you can afford in that, even if you just do a couple upgrades a day.

Be careful about auto showing. It makes things quicker, but you will get better results if you take the time to deliberately select the right shows for each horse.

If you put five horses all in the same show, only three of them will be able to earn any money back. At least two of them are bound to be a complete waste of money.

The strategy that best maximizes a financial return would probably be to show only your horses near the top of their bracket's stat limit, give them fully upgraded tack, and hand enter them in the shows that are the most expensive, but have the fewest entries, while only entering one horse per show.

Not much you can do if your horses' stats are spread out, except to be careful to only give specialized treats from now on. It's a problem that will correct itself in a few generations of careful breeding, but it has no immediate solution.

^ That is all really good advice.

Honestly I think that upgrading tack is a huge must. On my spare account I upgraded tack slowly to save money and managed to get all 8 of my horses tack upgraded in 1 week spending ~3k everyday just updating tack.

@Confessor, Great advice! Just a clarification on that last bit though, there is one way to "correct" stats, The Training Center's Convert Training Feature(found via the training center in explore). It's pretty costly, 10k for the first convert and 2 EVC for each thereafter, but if you're horribly on the wrong track for whatever reason it can definitely be worth it. It only works on horses that have earned stats not in their discipline, stats a horse is born with won't change but it can help if you've been treating with peppermints or the "wrong" treat for your horses's best discipline. It also doesn't let convert to the same discipline actually, because I just tried that :/ But it works great one incorrectly disciplined horses! (I suppose you could convert once and then convert back but 10k plus 2 EVC is pricey even for the best of horses.)