Breeding for competition

[Rosa Parks]

I’m completely new to breeding and since
I’m not premium I don’t have the confo evaluations on my horses yet. But I’d still like to know if anyone has some detailed information on how to breed for competition. Thank you!

[BlackOak2]

I’m completely new to breeding and since
I’m not premium I don’t have the confo evaluations on my horses yet. But I’d still like to know if anyone has some detailed information on how to breed for competition. Thank you!

Basics have you starting with finding a horse that does well in competitions.
By HGP grading, this can be your guide:
HGP below 40k - should be able to pull firsts in something in player-made competitions level 4 and 5. Please take this with a little bit of salt, tougher competitors may lower this level, easier competitors may increase this level.
HGP 40k-50k - should be able to pull firsts in level 8.
Above 50k should be able to pull firsts in level 10.

All this is based on a fully trained horse.
Plus with these exceptions or understandings:
Your horse isn't super fat, use a moderate or moderately thin weight, this will cover a good deal of the competitions for trials.
Reds don't mean the horse will fail in all competitions, certain comps don't require certain stats, for instance Log Pull doesn't require speed, so a red speed stat is negligible (it doesn't matter).
AC horses can perform in player-made competitions, so if one doesn't perform in them, it's likely a poor choice to build a competition bloodline on.
Once you decide on what competition you want to focus on (or competitions), keep only those offspring that excel in those competitions. You will hone your bloodline much quicker and more accurately.

By following these basics, it should get you to a good start.
Once you have a good base to your competition line, you will need to think about refining them. In order to do this, upgrading for the conformation evaluations will be the way to go.
You don't need to do so to stay competitive, but it does make things a lot easier. Without it, you will need to keep saving and breeding only those offspring that outperform their siblings and their parents. With access to conformations, you will be able to choose the offspring that although may not outperform their siblings or their parents, have the conformation points better then them, thus crossing these offspring with high-performing offspring, will quickly refine your line into top-class competitors. Without conformation, it just takes a little longer.

Further questions or help?

[Rosa Parks]

That was helpful, thank you. I remember reading that someone said when I can get confo evals to keep and breed horses with a 50 or higher in the stats for the disciplines I’m competing in, but I remember something else about how factors like a narrow head can influence a horse’s stats? Maybe it’s because I don’t have access to that yet but would you mind explaining to me how I would take that into consideration for breeding?

[Rosa Parks]

I’m completely new to breeding and since
I’m not premium I don’t have the confo evaluations on my horses yet. But I’d still like to know if anyone has some detailed information on how to breed for competition. Thank you!

Basics have you starting with finding a horse that does well in competitions.
By HGP grading, this can be your guide:
HGP below 40k - should be able to pull firsts in something in player-made competitions level 4 and 5. Please take this with a little bit of salt, tougher competitors may lower this level, easier competitors may increase this level.
HGP 40k-50k - should be able to pull firsts in level 8.
Above 50k should be able to pull firsts in level 10.

All this is based on a fully trained horse.
Plus with these exceptions or understandings:
Your horse isn't super fat, use a moderate or moderately thin weight, this will cover a good deal of the competitions for trials.
Reds don't mean the horse will fail in all competitions, certain comps don't require certain stats, for instance Log Pull doesn't require speed, so a red speed stat is negligible (it doesn't matter).
AC horses can perform in player-made competitions, so if one doesn't perform in them, it's likely a poor choice to build a competition bloodline on.
Once you decide on what competition you want to focus on (or competitions), keep only those offspring that excel in those competitions. You will hone your bloodline much quicker and more accurately.

By following these basics, it should get you to a good start.
Once you have a good base to your competition line, you will need to think about refining them. In order to do this, upgrading for the conformation evaluations will be the way to go.
You don't need to do so to stay competitive, but it does make things a lot easier. Without it, you will need to keep saving and breeding only those offspring that outperform their siblings and their parents. With access to conformations, you will be able to choose the offspring that although may not outperform their siblings or their parents, have the conformation points better then them, thus crossing these offspring with high-performing offspring, will quickly refine your line into top-class competitors. Without conformation, it just takes a little longer.

Further questions or help?

That was helpful, thank you. I remember reading that someone said when I can get confo evals to keep and breed horses with a 50 or higher in the stats for the disciplines I’m competing in, but I remember something else about how factors like a narrow head can influence a horse’s stats? Maybe it’s because I don’t have access to that yet but would you mind explaining to me how I would take that into consideration for breeding?

[BlackOak2]

That was helpful, thank you. I remember reading that someone said when I can get confo evals to keep and breed horses with a 50 or higher in the stats for the disciplines I’m competing in, but I remember something else about how factors like a narrow head can influence a horse’s stats? Maybe it’s because I don’t have access to that yet but would you mind explaining to me how I would take that into consideration for breeding?

Like I said, when you're first starting out, don't concern too much over what the horse looks like (conformation), because it's more important to first locate a horse with the talent in your desired competition or find a horse with a talent in any competition at all.

With two half-exceptions. Downhill (meaning if you move from the hips forward to the shoulders, the line goes down) is advantageous to speed (your racing disciplines).
And Uphill (which is the opposite of downhill), is advantageous to strength (primarily associated with log pull and certain driving disciplines).
However, if you happen to find a downhill that appears to have a talent in a strength discipline or an uphill that appears really good with speed, these particular horses may have some of the strongest base genes you could find.

So let's say you're ready to move forward into conformation. We have an introduction to that (really it explains everything about the page any of us need), in our help, guides section. It's a little buried, but it's found in this topic: Extensive User Guide

If you scroll down to the heading: Breeding Report
This link is there: https://imgur.com/6BHI8Xc

That's an example of the report, but it does break down and explain all the necessary conformation points to look out for.
Even without having access to the conformation, eyeing the parts of the horse that affect the stats you're looking for can help to lead you forward a bit.

It took me a few times reading over that example report to get a handle on it, but it is fairly easy to understand. So if you need further help understanding some aspect of it, let me know and we'll work through it more.

As far as taking the conformation into consideration during breeding, in my opinion, it's still way too early in your project to do so, with one exception: that you're going to purchase into an already established competition line.

An already established competition line will already be beyond the base or foundation and into the refinement state (the refinement stage uses the conformation evaluation to help move the breeding process of the competitor line along quicker).

If you're starting from scratch or starting from unknown competition ability horses (essentially from-scratch, just not AC), then immediately delving into conformation may ultimately limit the higher end your bloodline can reach, at least in the short term.
What do I mean by this?
Well, think of it like a cup. The cup is the genes of the horse and the conformation is the liquid going into it. If the cup (genes) is really small (weak) but you have an average comment, yet the conformation score is high (let's say 55), this means that the greater part of the comment is from conformation and not genes) then the cup is going to be small and you'll run out of room before you fill it up with all the conformation points you can gather together in the end. You limit yourself before you get to the better end. So you want as big a cup (gene potential) as you can get.
Finding a rather average-looking horse with talent helps to locate a potentially huge cup to build a good foundation on. Then build the genes toward your ideal outcome and when you find your bloodline competing with the highest levels successfully, then start to refine them toward the ideal conformation, thereby boosting the natural talent your bloodline already has.

In the end, how you want to tackle your project is entirely at your discretion. Learn what you want to learn, we'll attempt to help you through it if you're still confused.

Take a look at that example link and we'll tackle your next questions, if you have more.

[BlackOak2]

That was helpful, thank you. I remember reading that someone said when I can get confo evals to keep and breed horses with a 50 or higher in the stats for the disciplines I’m competing in, but I remember something else about how factors like a narrow head can influence a horse’s stats? Maybe it’s because I don’t have access to that yet but would you mind explaining to me how I would take that into consideration for breeding?

I forgot to explain how conformation, genes and the breeder's report co-exist.
The conformation page only shows the conformation of the horse and offers a hard score for the stats that affect it.
The breeder's report takes into account the genes the horse has, the conformation scores and adds it together. Then based on the hard number for each stat, it chooses a random comment among the couple it has to choose from to display (there are a few other rules kept behind the scenes, but that's the basics). The HGP is the hard number of all the stats added together.

So by separating the conformation score from the type of comment in the breeder's report (red, negative, average or neutral, positive, green, gold), you can offer an educated guess to how strong or weak the genes for each separate stat is.
This is handy when trying to find good breeding stock to start a project, if you have access to it. It's also handy to figure out what your stock is missing or the weak areas that exist in your bloodline.