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RamshornRanch · Jun 25, 2024 3:10 PM

I am curious if anyone else has the math for their 2nd gen foundation x foundation crosses for this season as to their ratios of "passed" foals. I'm not sure if I'm terribly unlucky this season, or if I had higher expectations than I should have with my Era 7 foundation crosses.

120 foals bred so far. All of them perfect foundation x perfect foundation crosses. All straw breedings.
39 Passed SBA and Papered B/Red. I feel like that's pretty reasonable at about 30%.

I then went through and comparison tested those 39 foals to my maxed Era 5 2nd gen benchmark mare and stallion.
Only 2 out of the 39 comparison tested as good as the maxed benchmarks. One of those was a foal that I had maxed, so throwing that out it's 1 out of 39. That's leaves me with less than 1% of the entire foal crop that comparison tested at the top end of what's possible at 2nd generation. Which seems really low.

I had hoped to try out something different with this Era 7 herd, keeping only foals as good as my benchmarks. But leaving me with only 2 candidates kinda throws a wrench in that whole plan. So now I'm scratching my head as to if I screwed up or what to do from here.

The offending foal batch: https://mesa.huntandjump.com/adv_search.php?runsearch=go&jump=0&hpp=100&agel=2&erae=7&f_adv=level&owner=12824&56=0&57=0&58=0&59=0&60=0&61=0

Benchmarks used for testing:
https://mesa.huntandjump.com/horse.php?horseid=2420436
https://mesa.huntandjump.com/horse.php?horseid=2420438

SummerMonarch · Jun 26, 2024 1:02 PM

Out of a pasture of 100, I expect to keep about 6 with an established gen and about 10 for
a new gen.

For a new gen I keep everything superior to dam. Once I have 30 breeding mares I switch to only keeping superior to dam AGA best of gen. I expect about 30% of a pasture to pass sba and about 5% to be AGA my best of gen.

Also decide now if you care about even breeding. If you don’t, it becomes hard to set a benchmark stud or mare, as they’ll have different breeding abilities.

If you are going to max, consider maxing the children of maxed parents. Max before cloning.

So yeah that sucks but it sounds within reason.

RamshornRanch · Jun 26, 2024 1:24 PM

I use my Era 5 line as benchmarks for comparison testing because I have a stallion and mare at each generation who is maxed from fully maxed parents. So I know they are absolutely the max you can get at each generation.
I'm familiar with all of that.

I am mostly wondering if less than 1% of the crop comparing AGA the best possible 2nd gen is reasonable or not? I would expect something like that with a small sample size but I was feeling like 120 foals was a pretty good group. Maybe that's also too small.

SummerMonarch · Jun 26, 2024 1:45 PM

You are testing against months and months of era 5 second gens. How big were those pastures? How many of your era 5 second gens actually test AGA to those two? When’s the last time you tested them all?

BlackShuck · Jun 26, 2024 4:52 PM

I haven't done the math but that sounds about like mine. I wondered if I was doing something wrong too, but this makes me feel better lol

WillowRidgeFarm · Jun 27, 2024 6:53 AM

I did better than average for my gen 2 horses this season. I got 11 keepers. However, I would estimate I bred more than 200 gen 2 babies between egg pulls, futurity, etc. I think last month I only got a couple gen 2 keepers.
My other generations got hit hard. I believe gen 3 & 4 only had 1 keeper each.

RamshornRanch · Jun 27, 2024 3:43 PM

Summer,

I'm not testing against a best of the best of pastures from months and months of Era 5 2nd gens. These are specifically two MAXED Era 5 2nd gens that were born in the first few seasons of Era 5. They are the best possible 2nd gen you can get. All of my Era 5 has been straw bred as I don't have enough space to pasture breed everything.
Everything else I have in Era 5 that is 2nd gen has been culled as I am currently at *gold level or better in the Era 5 barn. I don't have the space to keep my lower paper level gens sitting around. I specifically kept these two around for comparison testing purposes.
I'm confident that I am using what I want for comparison purposes. I just am surprised at how "weak" overall the batch of 120 foals in Era 7 is once compared to them.

BlackShuck and LaurierArabians,
It sounds like from your experience I am maybe not unlucky, but just had higher expectations than I should have.

At the end of the day I will just have to tweak my plans and move forward with the mares I have, as I can't afford to max any further to get a bigger batch that's AGA the comparisons.

darkpixe · Jun 28, 2024 4:51 AM

I don't test anything on Mesa that strictly (or I haven't gotten to it on Mesa for this month yet >.>), but I know on Forest, I was getting 1 or 2 out of 60 & 100-acre pastures that comp tested where they needed to for keeping. I had one 60 where the BIP didn't make the cut, so they all got snipped! XD I've been feeling like fewer are passing each month, then I'll have a good month, so who knows.
I don't have SBA, but I find a "worse than" benchmark. For example, I'll find a 2nd gen blue (from red/b) that tests "worse than" my BIP & then everything has to test better than that. It leaves a lot less wiggle room, since there're always a bunch that test AGA the BIP but also AGA that "worse than" one, and those all get snipped 'cuz I know they fall into the "about" section of "about as good as" and are therefore not quite there. Maybe my standards also need adjusting... #-o

Foxbrookfarm · Jun 30, 2024 12:08 PM

I have no actual math scores to add to this, but I will say it seemed like a rough year for me even with pasture foals as far as getting ahead with quality. Sometimes it’s just like that. I got some great babies from straws, which I usually don’t have a great passing rate with. Onward and upwards for the next season!

Kintara · Jun 30, 2024 5:24 PM

BA has definitely changed, I still haven't worked it all out, I mean we were explained how it worked for lined horses, but it's changed for breeding foundations too, so the gen2 foals. From what I can gather, there is a minimum pass standard that is actually better than the perfect foundations, where as before they only had to be as good as the foundation parents, they are now better, although may only test AGA. This is for BA, for foundation breeding SBA doesn't seem to do anything that BA hasn't already done.

I haven't done the maths, but approx 3/4 of my passed G2 foals were superior to yellow/B parents, all were red/B, and only one I think across all servers was equivalent to a maxxed foal, so on the high end of B/Red. I didn't have a full pasture bonus on any of those though, at most 15/16 days I think

SummerMonarch · Jun 30, 2024 6:30 PM

I’m pretty sure that not all foundation horses are the same. I think there is minor variation.

Maxed doesn’t mean moved to maximum ability for that gen. It means the maximum potential ability to be given by its parents. I don’t know how the pasture bonuses play into this— I assume that pasture bonuses wash out but I’m not sure.

In short, I think that not all maxed second gen foals come out the same level, because I’m not convinced all foundations are the same, for whatever that means.

LookingGood · Jul 2, 2024 7:48 AM

I agree with Summer.

RamshornRanch · Jul 2, 2024 9:41 AM

For sure not all foundations are the same, but my understanding is that all perfect foundations should be the same in breeding ability level. Anything from the foundation rescue that is yellow papered should be a perfect foundation.

Unless I am not remembering correctly. Which is totally possible.

It sounds like a bunch of you have similar numbers as far as comparing AGA a maxed foal. So that's comforting that I didn't necessarily do anything "wrong".

SummerMonarch · Jul 2, 2024 12:14 PM

You are in no way wrong. It gets worse at higher gen, too. :)

I understand the words you are saying about all perfects being equally perfect. I’m saying I don’t think they are. I think they are all as good as each other.

I know, I know, all perfects have a breeding score of 100/training score of 100. But something makes some small variation. By third gen, maxed foals from maxed parents out of perfect foundation, some maxed foals are better than others. That can’t be true unless the foundations can vary, even slightly, otherwise all maxed foals would be the same.

RamshornRanch · Jul 2, 2024 2:12 PM

Those third gen maxed foals, are you comparing PT to say that there's variation? Because I think the issue there can be consistency affecting your PT. Not necessarily raw ability.

Maxing does not correct to perfect consistency.

SummerMonarch · Jul 2, 2024 5:43 PM

I use the comparison testing against all studs of the same era. I find who is superior in weird ways—- horse 1 and 2 are aga. Horse 3 is aga 1 and superior to 2. Ergo, horse 1 is superior to horse 2.

pt can be unlinked from breeding ability when thinking about breeding ability.

——

I adjust consistency when I max.

Let us say there are three catagories: producing, showing, and reliability. Or breeding, pt, and consistency. Maxing, I believe, only impacts breeding an pt. Consistency is a weird thing that somehow relates to all of this. I fully admit I don’t get it.

But I do get producing and performance. And I’m saying that I think third gens from maxed parents from perfect foundations can test worse than each other.

I’m very aware of what I’m saying isn’t logical on first blush. But I do think perfect has variation, even if I don’t know how.

____

Look at the family page of this horse. That mare was testing worse than her age-wise peers, but she’s got perfect parents.

https://mesa.huntandjump.com/horse.php?horseid=2102741#tabs-2

I do wish I had a better record but I’m pretty sure I’m right. I wouldn’t be shocked if I was wrong, but I would be confused. Which is common. :)

Ammit · Jul 2, 2024 8:14 PM

RamshornSportHorses is correctly understanding how it works.

All perfect foundations are identical and interchangeable.

SummerMonarch · Jul 3, 2024 12:43 AM

Gosh darn it. I understand nothing!

(Thank you for clarifying.)

Walywoohoo · Jul 3, 2024 6:43 AM

But aren't the "secret breeding numbers", even on perfect foundations, just a teeny bit different?

Ammit · Jul 3, 2024 7:03 AM

No. Not at all. I am not sure where such an idea would have come from.

Ammit · Jul 3, 2024 7:08 AM

There are three hidden numbers. Training, breeding ability, and consistency (which you can calculate out by looking at show results). That's it. It's pretty darn straight forward.

RamshornRanch · Jul 3, 2024 8:34 AM

You will see variation in PT amongst perfect foundations, but I believe that is due to non-perfect consistency dragging down your PT. Perfect foundations have perfect training and breeding ability, but not always 100% perfect consistency.

Summer, it would be interesting to see your maxed third gens and see why one might be comparison testing better than the other. I wonder if there's a non-perfect foundation somewhere in the mix dragging that line down.

In my Era 5 herd my fully maxed line of horses have always comparison tested aga each other at each generation, and I'm up to gen 7 there.

Ammit · Jul 3, 2024 11:35 AM

RamshornSportHorses 100% correct on all counts there. :) I tend not to look at PT except in a general broad sense because it is completely noninheritable. It can be useful to gain some insights about a line or the parents of a horse but it's not a breeding ability metric.

ETA: Breeding papers and comparison testing tell you how good a breeder a horse is. PT tells you how well it can train. Good breeders can make high PT horses. High PT horses have zero impact on breeding.

A 13 pt horse double boosted over cap is vastly superior to a 15 pt horse at cap when it comes to breeding.

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