Cons of Buying Horses From Other Players?

I'm looking for some insight to different perspectives on what the cons are to buying horses from other players. I definitely have some of my own, for instance some of my foundation herds I struggle with introducing outside lines because I like seeing even pedigrees(its just so satisfying!)  As I'm just one person, I thought it would be interesting to see why it may be difficult for other players as well.

This is not a debate topic, just a perspective topic on the various struggles when buying horses from other people. Please be respectful and courteous to others should you decide to reply to them ♡

It doesn't have to necessarily relate to how the market is right now, but if a lack or influx of certain aspects do apply then feel free to list them as well.
I would especially like to see perspectives from players who have joined ev in this last year!

Last edited on 2018-11-07 at 14:22:43 by ξιίzα Ð

I personally love buying from other players but only with two out of my four breeding projects. I joined EV just over a year ago. :)

Since my GVs and Trakes are a mix of foundation and lined horses I benefit from buying or breeding to higher line bred horses from other players. 

However with my paints and appaloosa I really struggle to use outside studs/broods/sales as it is not easy to find foundations or at the least second gens from other players so I also have to create my own foundations. Which isn't always great as half the time I don't end up with any decent breeding stock and have to spend ages culling horses. 

Personally, I feel like introducing outside lines to my foundations is cheating. There's not a lot of challenges on this game since stats are very easy to raise and color can be fixed by tweaks. The only challenges I have are conformation and non-spec stats. If I introduced outside line with higher than normal conformation and low non-spec, my foals will automatically get much higher conformation and lower non-spec. I can easily breed for power herd within 2-3 generation if I used outside lines. After that, then what? It will just ruins breeding part of the game for me. That's why I don't buy outside lines.

Plus, pretty pedigrees are nice. "I made this!" is rewarding experience.

edit: this is also the reason why I don't inbreed or overbreed my horses. Overbreeding will give me larger amount of foals to choose. Naturally, I would pick all that have best conformation and non-spec and pair them up. It will just speed up the progress. In past, overbreeding doesn't bother me since I used to do that. However, I got bored really fast in this version if I do that since I will reach my goals a lot faster.

Last edited on 2018-11-07 at 12:34:11 by ωιςκεδ

The searching through pages of the horse search.  I keep an eye on the forums to watch those sales, then maybe do the horse search.

I also like having even generations, though I'm breaking from that with my own horses when they get to third gen and above, which makes it fun to look for some other lines out there.  Generally, I know who I have bought good horses from before, and pay attention to any of their sales a bit more closely, haha.

I agree with Nittrous on the pages of horse search.  I like having many options, but I wish there was some way to mark the ones I have already looked at, because, unless I recognize the name, I just have to go through the same two dozen horses with horrible non-discipline stats that I've already rejected.

Other than that, I actually love the challenge of trying to find a horse that matches my needs.  It's like a treasure hunt!

I have a hard time finding horses with non specialty stats I am looking for(foundation levels or better, having to go through tons of pages of horses only to find most are cubed and don't meet my criteria, that sucks and makes me not want to bother with it at all. 

The reason why I dislike buying outside horses is their non-specialty stats and the fact that most have been hay or sugar cubed for a couple generations. If they have less than 75 ns stats, 80+ conformation, and I have a horse with 20 or less ns stats; I am willing to buy said horse. Any horse I buy has to produce a foal with ns stats no higher than 65, so hopefully by the next generation, that foal can be shown for the entirety of its life.

I'm determined to have show quality horses at Feathered Gold Stables available for stud, brood, and for sale at reasonable prices. 😊 

Last edited on 2018-11-07 at 15:26:33 by 💜 Feathered Gold 💜

I agree with Feathered Gold re non spec stats which is my biggest problem where Trakes are concerned & those I desperately need new blood for! 

That being said I am protective over a couple of specific lines of pixels as Ive had them since day 1 on Ev so I dont like to add outside (other players) blood to those two  for the reason Wicked said IE "I made those!" but everything else is open to new blood!

I dont like it when 2 non compatible disciplines have been bred together so theres over 100 stats in the wrong place as it were. Ive seen that a lot lately in high stat horses which gets your hopes up only to be dashed!

I also dont like too much of a stat hit (not more that 2 grade levels ideally IE a R3 foal paired with no worse than R1) compared to my horses & its difficult to find unrelated horses from other players up to the same stat level as my own.... I dunno where all the stat breeders have gone! It used to be easy finding new blood. Now its nearly impossible :(

Everything else like colour (greys included) /pattern is unimportant as I mostly have boring limited colour coated breeds anyway so I am fine with the low number of options. No sooty dutchies or silver trakes for me!

Last edited on 2018-11-07 at 17:14:20 by Fabelhaft [WBs/Friesians]

My criteria for buying outside blood for any herd:
1. Non-specialty stats:  
a. Has to be 65 or less for non hay or sugar cubed horses
b. It's parents have to be below 65 stats IF said horse has been cubed

2. Conformation: The horse in question's conformation score has to balance out my horse's weakness evenly where there's a chance of getting a conformation score in between or even better than it's parents. 😊

3. Color: Not a deal breaker for me; heck, I will go for gray or white if it's conformation and/or ns stats fit my criteria!

4. Stats: I'm willing to buy a super low statted horse if conformation and/or ns stats are present. 

-Feather

Last edited on 2018-11-07 at 17:30:57 by 💜 Feathered Gold 💜

I really like buying and breeding to outside horses when possible. The only trouble is that there seem to be a lot more bad horses out there then good especially in my chosen breed and disciplines. I have Dutch Warmbloods in Jumping and Dressage. Jumping is the most common discipline for the breed so there tend to be lots of options but dressage is a lot less common so I have to keep to my own horses due to a lack of outside horses that are suitable.

The most important factor being the non specialty stats, I like to keep them as low as possible, under 60 or even better under 50 where possible. Pedigree, conformation and colour are not huge factors, although I try to avoid grey where possible.

 

I'm so new i havent unlocked the breeding feature yet. But I'm currently planning my "business goals" while i save up money and experience. So I found the horses getting dumped in RC to be useful feature: provides players with cheap horses to enter in riding school for short term financial gain. 

As for my long term goals I'd like to focus on lipizzans and quarter horses with good conformation and dressage stats...I'm starting with foundation animals from the EC and horses bought from other players. So, for showing stats the EC horses make more sense...you can raise them how you want to, train them how you want to...but for conformation goals horse they are average or slightly lower...  

Ive got an above average mare bought from another player but her stats are geared to western and not dressage. She loses more money than she earns at this point. But im curious to see if i can breed out the western stats and breed in the good physical quality.

I would buy from other players to both: improve foundation offspring faster. And to encourage interactions from other players (I might want them to invest in my foals or stud services at some point).

I regularly buy from other players and enjoy it and don't mind doing it most of the time.

It's really helped with my Andalusians and Akhal Tekes, and non-spec stats aren't so high it's concerning as I am aiming to bring them down.

With Trakehners, it's the lines i watch. 

I do have a few linebred horses, and try and avoid it as much as I can but so many horses use the same and similar stallions.

I do have my own foundations, as well as my own higher statted Trakehners too. The way I see it, is many of the higher statted ones are now starting to come from lines I've brought in and are now a few generations down the line, and when my foundies are ready and a few gens. down the line too, I'll hopefully be able to add some of them to my foundie lines. 

There are several stallions that are fairly common and I try and avoid them as much as I can, and whilst it does mean at times my pedigrees have a few gen. gaps, I'd rather have that and take a small hit with stats than have a lot of closely related horses. I'm not overly bothered by line breeding as long as the pedigree is relatively clean as a lot of warmbloods in RL are linebred and very closely related.

My Akhal Tekes are at a similar stage as my Akhal Teke foundies are at the point that I can now breed them, and their foals will probably end up being crossed with my bought in Tekes to add stats to them.

My biggest issue with Gypsy Vanners is that a lot of them are mixed stats. I do have a mare myself with split stats (I forgot to check the stud wasn't split stat and don't want to sell her on as a result) and high non-spec stats, and it's something that isn't across all my GVs but there are a few with higher non-spec stats that will have to be bred carefully to try and bring them down. But I also need to find outside GV lines and it can hard to bring them in and keep them high statted - my highest statted stallion is by Nina and Nina is also the dam of a lot of my high statted mares. 

So whilst I do have other horses I'm currently working on without Nina in their lines, their stats aren't as high. 

With my GVs, I aim to have them specialised rather than with split and high NSS as quite a few of those available do have high NSS and split stats.

My TBs have a lot of outside influence in them and a lot of them are probably linebred. But I mean, most real TBs have Northern Dancer in them somewhere on at least one side of their pedigree so I don't see it as a massive issue in TBs. TBs are just a bit of fun as I think its cool to own racehorses lol.

I do buy from others, but I agree with the sentiments about searching through pages and pages of horses, although my criteria are really relaxed compared to others, lol.
Another factor is I keep starting projects and never finishing them so I'm currently trying to clean out my herd.
I've started a project on my second account that mifbt help a bit with this issue- finding low non-spec horses in the rc and raising them as part of a show string to also put up for sale and stud.
We'll see how it goes!