HGG Community Forums

It depends on what you are looking to accomplish!

(disclaimer: most of this is personal experience and therefore is subject to interpretation and error. If I am incorrect/inaccurate, please speak up! This is a lovely question and I am interested to see other's perspectives on this as well)

As you pointed out, the max out ability takes a foal and gives it the best breeding ability that each parent is capable of producing together on a spectrum. This is useful for people who focus on generational breeding while aiming for the best of the best. A maxed out foal still is within the "generational" breeding ability of that generation, just at the top end. They will (or should be in theory) be able to produce a good number of foals that pass SBA when put to others of similar breeding ability in that generation (provided you are selecting superior mares/mares that are good as benchmarks/etc).

Boosts take what is already there (regardless of whether it is the best possible ability or not) and boosts it again by the percentage you have selected (1% or 5%). It doesn't necessarily maximize their breeding ability 100% of the time (again referring to the spectrum on where a colt's breeding ability may lie). This may or may not result in a foal that still is worse or only as good as their sire/dam. As LadyhawkeStables pointed out, comparison testing will be helpful in sorting and determining those who would be candidates.

A horse can be superior to sire/dam but still fall short of the "top" end of the breeding ability range. Boosting may or may not take you all the way to where a maxed out horse would lie and potentially even beyond into the next tier of breeding ability if the horse is indeed at or close to maxed out already (either naturally or through using the max out ability).

And I think that's pretty much the gist of it. I hope. :)

If you plan to do both then yes, to get maximum quality you should max and then boost!

Thanks, all of the comments and discussion are helping me understand!