Riding Schools, Training, Showing help

Hokay, not sure if anyone remembers me, but I took a 4-5 month Hiatus. I'm back now and there seemed to be a bit of changes and now I'm just like a newbie again....

So my main goals are high stats and leveling up my account
So to get high stats I should show my horse everyday and train, right?

Now the riding schools, I have no idea where they are or how they fit in. And I heard something about you can't show if you do riding schools? When would it be better to do riding schools, what do you get out of them?

Sorry about the mess of questions. I tried to simplify it by bolding the main ones.

Last edited on 2016-07-16 at 08:49:13 by ✎ Jezarae

Showing can give your horses stats but only if there's 5+ entries in the show and even then placing in the show doesn't guarantee stats. It's not a reliable method of gaining stats, treating, schooling and training regularly are guaranteed ways to earn starts.

Riding Schools are in your stables, you might have to "open" it still. You can find other players riding schools in the stable search. Riding schools generate extra money and can give you treats/items and stats for your horse in the place of showing slots.

You can put pregnant/retired horses into riding schools so there's the benefit of stat/treats/member exp and money if you use someone else's riding school.

Personally I put horses in whose discipline is the same as the current discipline of my riding school because I can't put 400 horses in a school heh. I also put horses who don't or won't do well in shows into the riding school so they can earn stats instead of being show fodder. If you match the disciplines you get a bonus in member exp and I think treat finds/stat gains.

Ah, almost forgot about treating. Can you train everyday until a horse's retirement? Or is there a limit a horse reaches and you can't train them anymore?

What is the benefit of using my own riding school vs someone elses? And it says you gain money by using someone else's riding school, but doesn't it cost more money because there's a fee? Do I gain EXP/stats either way?

Edit: Is there a way to tell if my riding school is public? I want my riding school to be public but my stables to be private...not sure if that's possible

Last edited on 2016-07-16 at 09:33:26 by ✎ Jezarae

You can train every day from age 3 until retirement. Once your horse reaches Training Level 5, (every Training Level increases your horse's "luck" in showing) you will gain no more Training Levels, but you continue to gain Stat Boost Points, which you can trade in for a stat gain when you have accumulated ten of them.

You do gain money from using other people's riding schools, but not from using your own. The owner of a riding school receives 10% of your earnings, but you keep the rest of it. You neither gain nor lose money from using your own school. I don't think there is any other difference between using someone else's school or using your own.

Your school is different from your stables. You can have a public school and keep your stables private.

Horses gain 0-1 stat per hour spent in a school. That means you can gain up to 10 stats maximum per 10 hour session. But it also means that it is possible to not gain any stats. You are much more likely to gain no stats (happens to me fairly frequently) than you are to gain 10 stats (still has never happened to me.)

If you are able to ensure that your horse will be entered in shows with at least five entries, and hopefully not much more than that, and if your horse has decent showing potential, you will gain stats faster by showing than by schooling. I personally school all my horses that have 90 non-specialty stats or higher, though I'm thinking of lowering that to 80. I also school my horses of retirement age, and my mares who are due to give birth the following day, as they cannot be shown. I also school any horses that don't have ten shows available to enter.

Others have found that schooling is more efficient in stat gain than auto-showing, but I have found that, given a good horse, hand-showing is still by far the most efficient. If you don't want to hand-select your shows, you may be better off using the riding schools.

With training, you want to train every possible horse, every possible day. If you have your own arenas, it is free, but it takes some time and effort to level up your arenas to the higher levels. To get maximum EXP for your account, train your horse in an arena of the same specialty and level (Novice, Local, etc.) as the horse. The more horses you have, obviously, the faster you will gain EXP.

Using special treats is not recommended unless you do not plan on showing your horses. Having high stats outside of your horse's specialty ends up becoming dead weight, that bumps it up to a higher competition level, but does not increase its showing power. Sometimes people use treats like peppermints and hay cubes before a horse turns three, while putting the horse in a specialty that they do not actually want, and then change the specialty (it costs $10,000 the first time, 2 EVC every time after) when it turns three, which switches all earned stats (not inherited from the parents) to the specialty areas. It is expensive, but it maximizes stat gain, and returns the horse to showing trim once it is old enough.

Wow thanks for all your advice, Confessor! I'm gonna save your post. This should be added to the player guide. Now I feel a lot less lost.

Two last questions, how to you find out how many stats/EXP was gained from riding school? Will it be a notification like when you place in shows when you first log in?

And how do you get your training centers to be at the right level i.e.. local or regional?
Edit: okay it looks like every time you train at your own center, the center gains EXP. So that's kinda odd because what if I want the center to stay at local or regional lvl and not keep progressing? Buy a new arena?

Last edited on 2016-07-17 at 07:21:34 by ✎ Jezarae

You have to manually upgrade your arenas, when you reach the exp goal a button will appear, if you don't want to upgrade just don't click upgrade.

I normally get 2-5 stats for each horse with 10hrs schooling, I school pregnant horses/about to be bred, retired horses and any horse with other 30 non spec stats because that seems to be the bust show horse limit to me. I also train all popular discipline horses to have a couple guaranteed stat boost days.

When you click 'complete' on a riding horse, it'll show you your member exp + bonus if you schooled a popular discipline horse as well as the stats your horse has gained and the treats you've found.