Question on Stats

I am a fairly new player, just hit level 6, so I am able to breed my horses now. I was really wanting to wait to breed my first pair of decent horses, but I just couldn't help myself, and bred them anyways. This is going to be their only breeding until both are in late teens, but I wanted to see what I could get from them now.

Stud is a dunalino stallion who carries flaxen and silver genotypes. He is 4 years old now, and had I believe 610 stats. I have been treating him, showing and training him to boost stats every day, and will continue to do so.

Mare is an ivory gold champagne colour, 9 years old and has between 650-700 stats right now. I have been doing the same with her as my stud to increase stats as much as possible and will continue to do so.

Both horses are regional 1 right now. My question is approximately how many stats with the foal have when born? Over 100, 200, 300, or more? What training level should they be in? Novice, local, regional?

Foals get about 1/4 of (sire stats + dam states). So, 300-320 stats.

the foal should be at least 315 stats at birth, but probably more. Training level is different than showing level, and the foal will start at training level 0, like all horses. The showing level is what will change depending on stats, so you can't predict what show level it will be until you know what it's stats are at birth. There are a few posts (i think FAQ in game discussions) that have the breakdown of what stats equal what showing level.

i imagine the color will be very nice, since both parents have dilutes/modifiers, but without knowing exact geneotpye i can't say for certain it wouldn't be a plain bay or chestnut :)

Thanks everyone! I am not worried about the colour of this foal, as it is going to be a stat project, however, colour wouldn't be a bad thing. I have another mare bred to a different stud, whom is a colour project, not a stat, she is a seal brown, bred to a homozygous flaxen dunalino (DD, ff) stallion.

This stud is not going to be used for stats, but for colour projects. I hope to get a brown dun, more dunalinos, ivory gold champagne dun and other nice colours from him off a variety of coloured mares. Stats are nice, but not required from him. Conformation is another thing I plan on breeding for from him and his foals.

Flaxen and silver (along with brown and cream) are some of my favorites in quarter horses! Theyre often really sought after when people are buying foals as well. c:

Some tips on getting foals that will sell easier is to breed the parents later in life (aiming for 16y+), limiting the number of offspring to around 4-6 (the reasoning for this is so the lines are rarer, and therefore more sought after), and avoid inbreeding as a general rule. I also try to get horses from shorter pedigrees because they're easy to keep track of in my opinion, and from pedigrees that are even on both sides (but that's just my weird personal preference).

I love seeing new quarter horse breeders! Just thought I'd drop in and give a couple tips on how to create foals that sell for a pretty penny in hopes that one day maybe we'll swap some lines. c: I'm a stat breeder at heart, but I'm always striving to get the best confo and colors I can out of my horses.

Thanks for all the tips! I will definitely follow those! I bought all of my horses from other people, and only have a few foundation mares. Should I buy a few mares and studs from the EC to start my very own lines? If so, what age should I buy them at? 3 years or 0 years, to get the best outcome of stats by the time they are in their late teens?

I personally love starting my own lines from the EC, even though they take a while to hit breeding age, because it's so much fun to see what they produce in the end. For the best possible stat gain you would want to start them at 0y, because they get 3 more years of earning stats throughout their lifetime (it comes out to a boost of 50-75stats, give or take).

Now, depending on the space and money you have to spend, I try to start mine in groups that even out over the generations. So two pairs (four horses), four pairs (eight horses), eight pairs (sixteen horses). The entire reason behind this is that you match up 1 stallion to 1 mare, and keep that as the breeding pair the entire time so that you never worry about crossing lines. You can see an example of 16 pairs (32 horses) of mine here.

Now, in qhs, western is the most popular discipline (my example are paints, but it's the same thing with them). There are generally two ways to raise horses that people have figured out when going for stat gains. The first is what most would call the 'normal' method, the other is the hay cubes method.

-- Normal: You set the horses for the western discipline, and set their treats to either green apples or carrots (int/spd). When the horses reach three years of age you put tack on them (always aim to get 5/5 tack whenever possible, as it gives them a boost in showing to have the best tack). You can then either show them or enter them into the riding school. I personally prefer to show horses when they are at the upper end of their stat brackets, and put them in riding school otherwise. So, if the N1 show bracket goes from 100s - 149s, I only enter horses above 140s into shows, and anything under I put in the riding school. This just gives the horse a higher chance at placing in shows, and therefore a higher chance of gaining stats. I can write you out a rough list of the stats I enter horses in shows at if you don't know the brackets very well, that you can save and use, if you'd like. c:

-- Hay Cubes: the other method is a bit simpler, but also has a cost attached to it (somewhat). In this method you set your horses to eating only hay cubes (hay cubes give a 0-2 stat boost in two random categories of stats) and set their specialty to something different than the one you want them to be in. In my example division, you can see all my paints are set to show jumping, when they should be western. The horses are then entered ONLY into the riding school. They don't need to wear tack, so you save money in that way, and there is no point to showing them because they will do terribly in shows (their stats will not be highest in what they need to be highest in - int and spd). You would continue this until they get older (at least 10 years of age is my recommendation, though I keep mine set this way until the day I breed them for the moment) and before you breed them you would go to the training school and transfer them from whatever specialization you set them as to the specialization you want (western). This costs $10,000 per horse, which seems like a lot, but I've done the math on the amount they gain through the riding school and it covers this cost plus some. (In short, the horses earn around $250 per day in riding school x 7 days per week x 10 weeks (if you change them at 13y) = $17,500. The horses can earn more depending on what type of riding school you're using as well). The stats all get moved into the proper places (int/spd) and the horses are ready to breed.

I've been running an experiment to see which method works better for higher stats, and at 8 years old, my experimental hay cube group is at a higher stat average than my normal method group.

All of this might be very confusing to start, and I apologize if it is! Feel free to ask any questions you need to help clarify it. These are both methods I and other top breeders use to raise the highest stat horses we can, so I'm sure others can jump in with a lot of other small tips I might have missed as well. c:

Thank you so much for all the information!! I will be using this information to get my own, proper lines going, even though it is a little confusing to read, I am sure once I re-read it, I will get the point, haha.

I have been feeding hay cubes to almost all my horses to get the most stats, however, I never realized that is why most of them are not placing in shows. I will put them in a riding school and see how that works with my new ones, and see if I can get their stats straightened out over time. I am not worried about the cost of hay cubes, as I recently went to the item market and bought over 18,000 for only 50evd. Amazing deal that will last me quite a while.

I have 10 horses right now, and my limit right now is 20, however, I have enough funds to raise the limit. I am going to go through my horses now and see which ones I am willing to sell and which ones I want to keep, then I am going to start fresh and see what happens.