Talent in horses

[BlackOak2]

When I think of a talented horse in, lets say, racing I think of a horse with high speed, stamina and strength conformation as well as good stats and HGP.
....
This lead me to think that it does not matter how high their confos, stats, HGP etc. is. But if that does not matter then what does? How can you tell apart a talented horse from an untalented one?

Ok now im stumped ... so anyway. I bred this horse out of good (and i mean really good) competing genes.
Anyway he has terrible times for racing when his parents both has great racing genes in them? They're both proven race genetics and yet he is horrible?
He has a pretty good racers confo (for my standards) and yet this is happening? I find this kinda confusing
Is there something I'm missing?
DMRTB Raspberry Sprite

Speed 65
Strength 33
Stamina 42
Intelligence Conformation does not affect Intelligence
Balance 17
Movement 31
Agility 26
Tempo 26

You know a lot lol any ideas?

Before looking over the horse and his pedigree, my first response is that it's likely the hidden genes that both parents carried and were unlucky enough to pass on at the same time to their foal.

Okay, now I'll look.

Looking over the scores of all three of them, it appears they passed on adequately the conformation needed.
The mare doesn't have her HGP saved anywhere... maybe I missed it. But between the sire and the colt, his HGP fails to meet or exceed his father.
So my response for this part is that even though, the conf scores appear to be strong, the hard genes are less than his father at the very least. Which also tells me that he either averaged out both parents, or moved in a negative direction as far as the genes went. Which takes me back to my first overall conclusion before I looked them over.

There is also no competition record for the dam, nor her parents. There is very limited competition record for the sire, but also no record for his parents. So although the times in locals or player-made may be good or bad, there's not enough evidence for me to determine if this colt is better than the parents or worse. Though my data might certainly be skewed by the bloodlines I'm using, I have found that locals may prove similar and be conclusive to whether a horse can compete in player-mades successfully, I have also found that some of my horses that do rather poorly in locals, still perform quite successfully in player-made. So I only base upward or downward competition movement on competition records.

By the very limited look at the record of his father, and the record thus far obtained by the colt, he is a bit better than his sire... at least as far as racing is concerned (not sprint). But his father is only half the equation.

So, you may have made the determination that he's worse than he should be. I cannot agree or disagree with you, because you know your bloodlines better than I know them. What I can say is that there is a 'best' outcome for a pairing of horses and a 'worst' outcome. Between these two, all of the foals will fall and we really can't say what that 'best' might be, just like we can't say what that 'worst' might be. We can only make an educated guess of where we expect the foal to pop out with. Those less then this, we should get rid of, apparently they're carrying the 'worst' style of genes of the pairing. Those that are better than what we expect, we should keep, but because they display what is better, doesn't mean they don't hide those worse genes either. They still could be carriers. But by weeding out the 'worst' foals, we do slowly work toward keeping better genes and breeding out those that don't make the cut.

[D.M Competing]

Ok now im stumped ... so anyway. I bred this horse out of good (and i mean really good) competing genes.
Anyway he has terrible times for racing when his parents both has great racing genes in them? They're both proven race genetics and yet he is horrible?
He has a pretty good racers confo (for my standards) and yet this is happening? I find this kinda confusing
Is there something I'm missing?
DMRTB Raspberry Sprite

Speed 65
Strength 33
Stamina 42
Intelligence Conformation does not affect Intelligence
Balance 17
Movement 31
Agility 26
Tempo 26

Before looking over the horse and his pedigree, my first response is that it's likely the hidden genes that both parents carried and were unlucky enough to pass on at the same time to their foal.

Okay, now I'll look.

Looking over the scores of all three of them, it appears they passed on adequately the conformation needed.
The mare doesn't have her HGP saved anywhere... maybe I missed it. But between the sire and the colt, his HGP fails to meet or exceed his father.
So my response for this part is that even though, the conf scores appear to be strong, the hard genes are less than his father at the very least. Which also tells me that he either averaged out both parents, or moved in a negative direction as far as the genes went. Which takes me back to my first overall conclusion before I looked them over.

There is also no competition record for the dam, nor her parents. There is very limited competition record for the sire, but also no record for his parents. So although the times in locals or player-made may be good or bad, there's not enough evidence for me to determine if this colt is better than the parents or worse. Though my data might certainly be skewed by the bloodlines I'm using, I have found that locals may prove similar and be conclusive to whether a horse can compete in player-mades successfully, I have also found that some of my horses that do rather poorly in locals, still perform quite successfully in player-made. So I only base upward or downward competition movement on competition records.

By the very limited look at the record of his father, and the record thus far obtained by the colt, he is a bit better than his sire... at least as far as racing is concerned (not sprint). But his father is only half the equation.

So, you may have made the determination that he's worse than he should be. I cannot agree or disagree with you, because you know your bloodlines better than I know them. What I can say is that there is a 'best' outcome for a pairing of horses and a 'worst' outcome. Between these two, all of the foals will fall and we really can't say what that 'best' might be, just like we can't say what that 'worst' might be. We can only make an educated guess of where we expect the foal to pop out with. Those less then this, we should get rid of, apparently they're carrying the 'worst' style of genes of the pairing. Those that are better than what we expect, we should keep, but because they display what is better, doesn't mean they don't hide those worse genes either. They still could be carriers. But by weeding out the 'worst' foals, we do slowly work toward keeping better genes and breeding out those that don't make the cut.

Ok! This actually makes so much sense now you've talked me through it. I have another horse who was from horrible competing lines but hes actually amazing?

[Katy_Kanes]

This lead me to think that it does not matter how high their confos, stats, HGP etc. is. But if that does not matter then what does? How can you tell apart a talented horse from an untalented one?

I can completely atest to this.

I was doing some mock shows, just for me to get my horses titles & other stuff. ^WRRW^ I Wish I Was Beautiful


Then this gem comes along. Go ahead, look at her. She is a nearly completely untrained horse with a kinda bad confo, but she beats like all of my trained horses?!?!

I'm going to continue doing mock shows till I get a certain horse to TCh.++, but otherwise- I'm watching out for her.

[BlackOak2]

Ok! This actually makes so much sense now you've talked me through it. I have another horse who was from horrible competing lines but hes actually amazing?

Right... just the right combination of genes that came together in just the right way... or... the two separate lines you used had just enough genes to mix up perfectly, the 'averaging' of the conformations and so on... and somebody, somewhere might be hiding quite the heart gene.

If you pair the two up again and continue to pop out amazing foals, then the 'averaging' is what's most likely happening. Or if you find it nearly impossible to repeat the horse, then they likely matched up just right. But of course, you can be pretty safe in assuming that one or both parents hide a stronger heart gene or an upward-enabled (meaning the heart gene can easily be better in foals rather than worse) heart gene.
Finding it is another issue. I don't have enough data to give more information on which horse might have it to pass on. I have only enough data to say whether a horse likely has this 'potentially existent' heart gene. That's pretty obvious though, as long as you can see a competition record.

But just because the horse is amazing, doesn't mean he'll be able to pass it on. When I've come across this, I found better odds of solidifying those genes by crossing them into a similarly conformed or competed horse with an already established heart bloodline. Doesn't have to be a strong heart, just a dependable heart.

...

You're horse does appear to have some decent potential in cross country. She could easily carry the lines to begin quite the competition bloodline in cross country.

However, also keep in mind the competitors your horse is going up against. It may mean as much that your competition is weaker than they should be... but looking at her hard scores as an untrained... there's a good chance she might be able to come decently close to those record scores. Of course, I haven't actually looked or studied the differences between scores on horses untrained versus trained. That said, the current records for cross country are 23-24 penalties and she's already pulling 36-38... it'd be interesting to see (if you do get her trained up) how much better her penalty scores change, including weight and temperament adjustments if need be.

Congrats!

[Katy_Kanes]

Ok! This actually makes so much sense now you've talked me through it. I have another horse who was from horrible competing lines but hes actually amazing?

Right... just the right combination of genes that came together in just the right way... or... the two separate lines you used had just enough genes to mix up perfectly, the 'averaging' of the conformations and so on... and somebody, somewhere might be hiding quite the heart gene.

If you pair the two up again and continue to pop out amazing foals, then the 'averaging' is what's most likely happening. Or if you find it nearly impossible to repeat the horse, then they likely matched up just right. But of course, you can be pretty safe in assuming that one or both parents hide a stronger heart gene or an upward-enabled (meaning the heart gene can easily be better in foals rather than worse) heart gene.
Finding it is another issue. I don't have enough data to give more information on which horse might have it to pass on. I have only enough data to say whether a horse likely has this 'potentially existent' heart gene. That's pretty obvious though, as long as you can see a competition record.

But just because the horse is amazing, doesn't mean he'll be able to pass it on. When I've come across this, I found better odds of solidifying those genes by crossing them into a similarly conformed or competed horse with an already established heart bloodline. Doesn't have to be a strong heart, just a dependable heart.

...

You're horse does appear to have some decent potential in cross country. She could easily carry the lines to begin quite the competition bloodline in cross country.

However, also keep in mind the competitors your horse is going up against. It may mean as much that your competition is weaker than they should be... but looking at her hard scores as an untrained... there's a good chance she might be able to come decently close to those record scores. Of course, I haven't actually looked or studied the differences between scores on horses untrained versus trained. That said, the current records for cross country are 23-24 penalties and she's already pulling 36-38... it'd be interesting to see (if you do get her trained up) how much better her penalty scores change, including weight and temperament adjustments if need be.

Congrats!

I think I'm going to breed her more AND get her trained.