Training level?

I´ve just noticed my horses leveling up their training level. What is this for? Sorry if the question looks silly, I´m back now from a 3 years hiatus so some hings are new to me :)

I need some clarification on this too. I know after doing it 10 times you get a stat boost in your horse's specialty. It looks to be the same stats for the lower levels. I'm not sure I've made it above level 3 yet. I heard something that made me think once you make it to level 5 your horses will do better in shows? Maybe I misunderstood. 

From what has been explained to me in the past the higher the training level the higher luck factor the horse will have in shows. 

^{The higher the horses training level the less luck it has in shows, you should see steadier results the more it’s trained.}

I'm still one of those people that show horses with low NSS and only the highest of my horses in each grade. There are usually only 10 shows in each grade I have horses, if that. I pick them each day based on their stats. Majority of my horses are either local or regional. I show about 5 horses a day, and usually I have pretty good results. 

When I see a horses with lower stats, higher NSS, but at a better training level consistently place better than my horse?(about a 20 stat difference, and 15 NSS. Both horses higher pointed in their grade) It is because they are at a high training level, not cause of some fluke or something I can't see? Then in that same show, my training level 2 horse consistently beat 2 horses that started at level 5 (they also are lower statted in that grade.) 

When does it not matter if your horse isn't at the top of their grade? It stills seems to produce the best results for me. 

Now looking at show results, every other horse is a level 4 or 5. My horse placed 3rd or better in 8 of the shows, at training level 2.

Last edited on 2020-03-16 at 16:05:59 by Aprilis

Your horse has higher luck at training level 2 so you get a higher show bonus basically which might put you over the edge of higher scored horses and look like it wins more. It's a small factor compared to nss/total stats as it's calculated after everything else, that why you don't see much of a difference. 

River described it as this in a showing discussion a while back: