Stats, shows and offspring.

Hello!

So, I find myself in a bit of a bind... I don't really know what to do. When i joined, I always put my horses in the disciplines their individual starting stats lent them the best for, meaning I have a very diverse stable. I do like that, but I do find myself in a situation now where I don't really know what to do.
I've had to accept that, as a new player, my horses simply won't be worth anything no matter what I do. But, I do still want to ask. Is it strictly necessary to keep ALL your horses in a single show discipline? Is there nowhere else to go with this system?

If you change your horses discipline, all their earned stats will be put into your new disciplines priority stats..so there's really nothing else you can do. I choose my disciplines based on what that breed is used for in real life..like DWBs for show jumping, Gypsys for driving, even if their stats at first favor something else. That's what most players do.

Definitely what Merkavich said. I group my breeds into one discipline, but try other disciplines with other breeds. I have a HUGE herd and I think that's harder to do with a small one, though. It'd be my opinion (though I was new before and now just came back after three months) that if you wanted to do your original route with individual horses, I would do it on mostly stallions and not focus on breeding your own pairs too much so you could make profit from studding them out.

If you are not going to breed your horses together, you can put each one in any discipline you want. It only becomes a liability when you breed two horses that have their stats built up for different disciplines. You'll end up with a foal with stats muddled around over three or four different traits, rather than focused on the two traits that actually benefit the discipline. That makes for a very poor show horse, because the extra stats outside of the discipline will count towards raising it to a higher showing level, but won't help it score well.

If you do end up breeding your horse, and want to show (or sell) the offspring, be careful to keep your breeding pairs matched up by discipline.

Also, a first generation (foundation) horse can be very valuable, if it is treated and trained and shown strategically. I have had a foundation horse reach the National levels. And it's possible to become a real contender at the game fairly quickly. I've only been playing since December, and recently hit number one for all-time show earnings, before I decided to give myself a break from the time commitment it takes to make that kind of money.

Of course, you don't have to play that intensely if you don't want to. (It is an enormous time commitment.) Play however you want to play. Just don't feel like you have to limit yourself or your horses just because you are new.

I do plan to do a lot of "in house" breeding, so, I guess I'll just have to pick my favourite discipline IRL And start saving to convert everything on all of my other horses! (bit sad to loose the use of all that extra tack I've gathered though!)
It will be a daunting task, for sure, 10k per horse is a huuuge amount...!
I have pretty much only foundations, with... three, exeptions, I think. I want to breed for conformation and colour, but don't want my horses to be useless in other regards in the end, and it was only after the fact I realized a lot of players are stat picky... and now, when I know the amount of stats, not winnings or other scores, determine showing level, yeah, I certainly understand why they are! ....SO, my walkers will now ALL be racers! (That was the breed who's art appealed the most while ALSO having almost all the colour options I wanted. I just lament they are locked from the seal bays, pangare and sooty...!)

With each of my herds I did something a little different. What I'm trying with my Trakehner foundations is showing each horse in whatever discipline that matched the most base specialty stats...then retraining them all to Showjumping come breeding age. After tracking my Andalusian and Gypsy herds, I noticed that the foundations with 50+ specialty base stats showed/earned money quicker and better than those who hovered around 40 base specialty stats. So with my Trakehners, I'm hoping it allows for a large group of high-statted breeding foundations, AND it also helped avoid 40+ of my own horses showing in N1, N2, N3, N4 etc. in showjumping at the same time. Spreads the competition around more evenly for optimum stat gain. At least this is my theory, and I hope it pays off (talk to me again in 4 months LOL).

Granted, this is expensive. I'll be spending close to $500k when they hit 19 to retrain them all to SJ for their finals years.

You can sell the tack and recoup some of the cost. Ooooor if you like and if we remember, I'd be willing to trade you tack. :)

*Took all her saved money to change as many horses as possible*
Yeah, the "spreading them out" is a good point... but I think I have to re-stat mine asap anyway, for my peace of mind...! I wish the contest didn't work of the total stats, but the relevant ones, It kinda sucks that It is this way, honestly. I'd have much rather bred very overall high stats horses, but that will literally shot down their chances to compete, which is... well, pretty dumb! It's a pretty bad system.

I have some spare tacks lying around, whenever you think you have space race tack! Some of them are upgraded a step, a single piece twice, If I recall correctly!