Foal Question

I know when you have a foal born, some recommend setting the horse's specialty to something other than what you intend for them to be, and treating them with [preferably]Peppermints or Hay Cubes, then convert at 3 years. Example-->Setting to Dressage, when you want Western.
That's just what I've been told and will be applying that method in a couple days to see how it works??

My question is, what about a high statted foal who has stats set in one discipline already. Do you still set a specialty other than what the stats are for or just use discipline-related treats?

Thanks in advance for any and all help

You will still get more stats for your foals by treating with peppermints and then switching to the intended specialty, even if the foal was born with no stats outside of the two specialty traits.

Peppermints and haycubes average a higher stat gain than regular treats If you can afford this method, you will get an edge on foal stat gain, but it is very expensive, so if you don't have money to burn, I wouldn't bother. It isn't that huge of a difference.

the method is the same regardless of the stats of the foal at the time you start feeding treats.

I do agree with Confessor, that if you don't have the money to blow on treats that its not really worth doing it. Given that a peppermints cost 2k per use now, I spend 42k total from 0-3 on each foal. Add to that the cost of converting a specialty and you're at 52k already.

Regular treats give you about 1.5 stats per day, and peppermints give about 3.5, so over the three years thats about a 40 stats difference, which divided by the cost of treats and conversion is about 1.3k per extra stat.

I personally use the feed peppermints and convert method because I have the cash flow to do so, but you can still do very well with a horse just feeding discipline stats from birth.