Going to start breeding + questions

I plan to start breeding my own herd once ive built up more space, my plan is to have a total of 65 -70 spaces for the horses, 25 of which are dedicated to only rescues since I still want to keep that up. While the rest of the stalls are for my herd and future foals but I do have a few questions I'm hoping you guys can help me with.


1. Which is better riding schools or showing? Or would it be better to do a mixture of both?

2. What is a good age to breed them at to get good stats? My plan is to breed for stats and breed them 2 or three times to get both genders

3. Is it better to feed them sugar cubes/hay cubes or the single/bag treats?

4. Would it be better to buy the EC horses as foals or 3 year olds?

5. Is it better to go public with my lines or keep them private?

6. And lastly what's the best breed? I know there's alot and I'm still looking through them but I can' seem to decide on what breed I want to focus on

1. it depends! if your horses have high non-specialty stats, low-grade tack, or at the very bottom of their level in terms of stats, they probably won’t perform well in shows. in that case, schooling is the better option. But if they don’t/aren’t, then riding school is much more lucrative and provides a better opportunity to gain more stats.

2. horses gain stats their whole lives, so they will produce the highest statted foals once they have gained the most possible stats, which is at the end of their lives. To get the highest possible stats in foals, you would need to breed the day before retirement. That would be 20, ages tomorrow. If you want multiple foals you’d need to start earlier to have time to breed them multiple times. For two foals you’d breed once at 19 (ages tomorrow) and again at 20. for three foals you’d start at 18 (ages tomorrow), plus at 19 and 20, and so on.

3. cubes increase overall stats more quickly, but they also increase ALL stats, regardless of the horses speciality. If you want horses that are competitive in shows (ie have low non-speciality stats) then you should feed the proper treats for their speciality.

4. Buying at 0 years old means that you can complete 100% of foal training, which results in a higher stats gain when they turn three. If you buy them older from the EC, you won’t be able to complete 100% of the training, and so they’ll gain less stats. 

5. that is a personal preference. i’d strongly encourage you to be public with your lines, as it would aid in the sale economy of EV, which is currently struggling. However, what you do with your horses is totally up to you! 

6. again, that is a personal choice. My favorites are arabians and mustangs because those are my favorite breeds in real life. some breeds (and disciplines within those breeds) are more popular than others. Popularity makes it much easier to find outside studs/mares, easier to find horses to add to your lines, and easier to find buyers for your foals. To find the most popular breeds, and most popular disciplines for those breeds, check out the statistics page.

1. With my horses, I do a mix of both depending on how their stats are. 

2. It depends on how many foals you want out of your horses. I start breeding my horses at 15 years. 

3. I would personally avoid the hay cubes/sugar cubes. Since they increase all of the stats and not just the specialty stats. So I would go with the treats that would increase whatever your horses' specialty stats are.

4. I would recommend buying them as foals so you get the higher stats gain when they turn three.

5. Like kahzie said ^ this is your personal preference. You could keep certain horses for yourself and use others for public stuff (Just an idea c: )

6. In my opinion, Paints are one of the better breeds on this game. Mainly because they come in almost all of the colors and markings on the game. Also they have many people breeding them, so it'll be easier to find certain broods/studs that you want to use c: 

I hope this helps c:

Thank you guys that's a big help :D, I've narrowed down the breeds to four now but still can't decide between them xD. The thoroughbred, Quarter horse, paint and the Morgan

I breed Quarter horses and paints, so having another breeder would be nice but I also used to breed thoroughbreds and they were great too. 

I'm now actually leaning towards quarter horses or thorughbreds, it's hard to choose xD

I breed QH’s, but one thing is QH’s do have more colors and patterns then TB’s. I like TB’s too, but yah. :)

1. Which is better riding schools or showing? Or would it be better to do a mixture of both? - do both, although money wise, riding school would be better.

2. What is a good age to breed them at to get good stats? My plan is to breed for stats and breed them 2 or three times to get both genders - I usually breed them at somewhat random ages, but usually I breed them when they're pretty old so they have the best stats possible.

3. Is it better to feed them sugar cubes/hay cubes or the single/bag treats? - If it's going to be a show horse, then absolutely not. Peppermints, hay cubes and sugar cubes give every stat area stats. If you want it to be a low non-spec stats horse than sugar cubes and hay cubes is a bad idea! So I avoid them. 

4. Would it be better to buy the EC horses as foals or 3 year olds? - Foal. It's more expensive but you have more time to get them higher stats and such. 

5. Is it better to go public with my lines or keep them private? - Preference, preference, preference. However you want! I personally do both. I usually keep them to myself, but I do make them public-usable as well sometimes. It just depends on what you like, really. 

6. And lastly what's the best breed? I know there's alot and I'm still looking through them but I can' seem to decide on what breed I want to focus on - I personally like Shetlands, Gypsys, Chincos, Andalusians and quarter horses. I'm also about to start with Arabians. Yay go QH breeders!! 

Thanks for the advice :D. I've now decided on a breed and I'll be going with quarter horses, I've seen many pretty colors and I just love the art for them. I don't know anything about genetics but I might give color breeding a shot for a second goal with stats being the main goal of mine. I also think I'll do both private and public with my lines when I get my horses to second or third generation. I plan on breeding them for Western and most likely keeping to riding schools, thank you all for the help :D hopefully in the next few days I'll have a herd of 16 quarter horses. I'm also pretty close to the space I want before buying them :D