Showing vs. Riding School

So I've been wondering what everyone's opinions are on showing vs. the riding school. I know that a lot of players still faithfully show their horses, but other players are dedicated to riding schools while yet others do a combination of the two.

Personally I'm dedicated to showing my horses and spend oodles of time doing a combination of hand showing and auto showing. However I don't make very much money showing my horses, i.e. today I lost money showing, about -6k, and on a good day I maybe make 10k. The reason I'm dedicated to showing is for the chance at higher stat gain; today one of my horses got 14 stats from showing, though I'm the first to admit that is rather rare. lol

I have a handful of horses (my Fodder Horses) which get entered into the riding school everyday (or entered into shows whenever I forget). They seem to be doing okay in the stats department, but they don't really compare to my competition horses at all (but again I spend a lot of time working with my competition horses and my fodder horses serve their purpose but I more or less ignore them).

So what are your thoughts? Do you have an opinion on which is better or just works better for you?

my goal is also stat gain, and i've found that a combination of showing and using the riding school both gives me consistent stat gains as well as a constant flow of money.

i will show a horse if it is in the top 10% of its grade stat wise AND it has less than 100 non-speciality stats AND there are shows available to enter that have at least 3 other entries that i don't own. These horses are likely to win and earn me money. All other horses go into trail-riding schools where they will always earn money, usually stats, and often treats.

Nothing can replace a good showing day (i've had one horse earn 21 stats in a single morning!) but if my above criteria aren't meant it's a crapshoot to show then and i'd rather not lose the fees.

Well... *Thinks this over* I currently mainly riding school my horses, but I'm trying to get back into showing. Recently I riding schooled all my horses for about a month, then started to get into showing them more frequently, and nowadays my horses aren't winning as frequently as they used to, but then again, most of my horses are currently locked, just to give myself a vacation. :P I'm mostly doing five hours of riding school/ five shows per horse, unless I forget. *Shrugs sheepishly* I hope to work up to ten shows per horse, but for now I'm doing five of each.
Okay, now that I'm done with that lecture , I'll get to the point. I can't really tell if my horses are very good at shows well they're still adjusting to showing again (Some of them have been riding schooled all their life, actually), but if all goes as planned I will probably mainly show them, with the exception of days when I don't have time, because I'm pretty sure shows usually give more stats than riding schools, but that's just my opinion.
I can't figure out why I'm surprised that became so long. ;)

I will admit that i've been schooling all of my horses because I've just joined and most of them are foundation horses. I plan on starting them in shows later this week/next week. I'll probably start in by doing 5/5 just to see how things go.

@ Tuarwen : You might consider keeping your horses in Riding Schools until each one is fully tacked with lvl 5 Equipment, showing with lower lvl equipment will loose you lots of money very quickly. If you need some lvl 5 equipment and can't upgrade tack yet other players would likely upgrade tack for you at cost. (I know I'd be willing to help out if you needed it; I can't remember what player lvl is required for tack upgrades).

@ PoniesStars: I used to do 5 hours of riding school and 5 competitions with horses which weren't competing well, but I've moved back to full showing.

@ Kahzie : I should be doing the same thing. I'm considering doing this with my Friesians just to see if I can manage a program like that and to judge the difference it makes. My QHs are old enough it wouldn't likely help them much at this point.

I tried hand showing and it just took me too much time for little to zero reward. Granted back when I was showing my horses, I wasn't paying attention to specialty stats or tack since I was still pretty new to the game. Since I've been so short on time, I usually just throw my horses into riding school. I've been pleased with the results I've had. I would rather get 2-7 stats per day per horse consistently than show and only have a few horses dominate. I think that I will get back into showing when I have more time to do it by hand!

I'm giving the 5 shows/ 5 hours of trail riding combo a try. When I had Gypsies, I did all riding. After a while it felt stale although the rewards netted me more than showing ever did.

my current green arabians are being raised using that method, and the foundation parents of my lyrical arab foals all reached between 875 and 1050 stats by retirement using that method, so I'm a firm believer that it works xD

I usually just jot down the small handful that need to be shown, show them, -!: then go down the line entering everyone else in riding school without having to go back and check stat level.

I typically get the same or much more stats from showing, so I prefer doing that, but I have a system that's been working really well for me. I keep track of each horse's win percentage and divide their hours between shows and school based on that.

I show far more than school, but do a mix of both. With as many horses as I have, I can't dedicate the time to hand-showing (though I wish I could), so I exclusively use auto-show. I also always use the "highest entry" selection, because otherwise they don't always wind up with enough competition to win stats, and that's the main reason I prefer to show. (I know that that's basically the *worst* strategy for winning, though.)

If my horses are national level, and I know that there are at least five of them in the game with the proper discipline and grade, I will show them. (Even if I own most or all of them, since then at least the best of the group will keep getting stats.) If there aren't enough horses to enter 5 per show, they get 10 ride hours.

If they're below national, and are in the bottom 30% of their grade, I enter them in 5 shows and do 5 trail ride hours. If they're in the top 70% of their grade, I just show them. (A lot of them still won't place, but I have random lucky days when one I didn't expect to do well does, which keeps me aiming for it.)

I'm thinking about changing that to showing only if they're in the top 50%, and maybe doing more rides and fewer shows for the ones in the lower percentages. Stat gain can be so slow doing only the riding, though, that I don't want to make those horses stagnate for too long.