HGG Community Forums

Don't use it if you don't care about the breeding quality of the horse and just want intact foals. :)

The mares are way worse than the stud so the foals will be better than the mares but way worse than the stud so won't pass.

I still consider myself new (been playing since Feb) and the community here is amazing!

What Ive learned, thus far, show herds are crucial. When bootstrapping do *not* BA any fillies. Keep them and breed back to the stud. The idea is to increase PT and create a good show herd. Once you start getting star paper (you can paper horses with basic upgrade) foals comparison test them and have a superior foal take over, and continue the cycle.

Now uneven breedings tend to have lower chances of passing BA (SBA on premium accounts). And as a new(er) player the horses Ive gotten for breeding are all over the place, both with papers and generation. My watercolor horses, for example, are unevenly bred (currently) and I wont BA them because I want breedable horses and I know they wont pass BA. From my experience 1 or 2 (3 if lucky) will pass BA in 50.

Horses I breed that are evenly bred or have genes I want to breed for a project I BA everything.

Eventually when I have better established lines I will BA everything and only use breeding quality horses.

So basically its up to you and how you want to play.

Side note - I havent even started the breeding clubs and that side of the game, however if its your thing you will want to SBA everything and continue to only breed better quality horses (if I understand it correctly).

Welcome to the game :)

Also, regarding your questions of why when bootstrapping not to BA:

When evenly breeding, theoretically, as you go along and get into higher generations, the foals are less likely to pass BA. I know @ConfluenceRanch has made a really good explanation of this with pictures and everything, but I haven't been able to find that post to share.
The breeding quality of a horse is an unseen/unknown number (unlike PT, which can be tested and known). For a foal to pass BA they have to "fall into" the "gap" between the breeding quality number of the sire and number of the dam. A foundation sire bred to a foundation dam has a fairly large "gap" and the foal is statically more likely to "fall in between." As the generations go on, that "gap" get smaller so the foals are less likely to fall into that "gap" and thus less likely to pass BA.

When bootstrapping you have a very high quality breeding sire and lower quality mares, so their foals are less likely to fall in the "gap" between the two and pass BA.

I hope this makes sense, it blew my mind and understanding of the game when I learned this.
Also, please let me know if I have any of this confused, backwards, or incorrect.

I will also add that there is no reason to BA or SBA Exceptionally Perfect founations, Exceptional Producers, any herd helper that has Exceptionally Perfect or Exceptional Producer listed on the description, Perfect Foundations or Rank Specials. They will always be AT LEAST perfect breeding horses, and if they are Exceptional they will be even better (105% I think)

I’m currently studying Equine Science with a focus on breeding and genetics. Definitely reflects real life quite a bit! The goal of breeding horses in real life is to improve upon the parents. This is easiest to do when the parents compliment each other and are similar in quality.

I remember reading a story from the owner of an amazing Grand Prix dressage stallion. A woman came up to him and said that the foal she produced from breeding her mare to his stallion didn’t have a nice canter and she was very upset. Turns out that the dam was a Standardbred mare with a fantastic trot but an awful canter. Since the foal naturally inherited some of the conformational qualities from the mare that caused her to move this way, the foal ended up with an average canter even though the sire had an amazing canter.

The stallion owner said, “You can’t expect to breed a really good stallion to a poor quality mare and get a super foal!”

When I first started bootstrapping, I would BA the male foals and will only start to BA the female foals when I get a significant number of male foals passing. If you have a really good stud (very high star that's maybe boosted) then you may not ever be able to BA your foals and the only way to tell their quality is to use comparison testing. :)

You cannot say what generation that would be because it depends on the quality of the stud (and also on the quality of mares). I would paper the girls though to make sure you are at least getting blues and golds (at the beginning) then only golds.

If bootstrapping is to get better pt for showing, maybe go off that? Im just barely starting a boot strap herd, so im learning about it too. However I know there are players who never bootstrapped and they're doing well. I have mostly grown my show herd by buying high pointed horses. My bootstrap herd just started this month so wont see any progress with it really for a while yet.

Im not sure...ill ask another player lol

I’m fairly new, just been playing a few months and what I have been doing lately now that I have ALOT of horses and beginning to breed my G2 horses….
I BA everything unless it’s a specific color I’m working towards. I SBA the stallions and BA the mares. It’s cutting down on my keeper foals since I’m out of room… and then as I move new mares or stallions into pasture I look at family history / do comparison testing and get rid of the stallions who are no longer superior. I also look at AFPT occasionally and auction off whatever is below my “cut off”. It’s slower than bootstrapping but I don’t mind. I did buy a few stallions as well that were specific genes or colors I wanted but not so high in quality that nothing would pass. I also have only been doing exceptional producer Herd Helpers unless it’s genes I’m looking for. I’m starting to get some 11s PT for show and breeding. I’ve heard it gets harder though the higher you get.
Right now I’m working on Livers… I just love the color! But for a while I didn’t BA any liver because my success rate wasn’t that great for a while. So… it just depends on what you want to do!

Breeding advice tells you how a foal compares to its best parent. Hard to get a foal that is a good representation of a stallion when you have a rather poor more.