Alaina's Simple 6-Step Guide to Greens!

[Alaina]

So this is a rough outline of how you can use Larissa’s “Understanding the Breeder’s Report and Conformation Evaluation” thread (located here) to work your way up to horses with green stats!

Things you can find in this guide:

• 1. A fairly reliable method of obtaining greens in your herd from scratch working through one stat at a time
  
  2. A fairly reliable method of obtaining greens without having to fuss over conformation (perfect for basic players!)

First I will list the steps and then I will elaborate on each below:

• 1.Pick the stat you want to improve
  
  2. Look for the foundation breed that carries the genes for that stat
  
  3. Adopt several of the foundation breed chosen above and pick from those ones with above average comments in your chosen stat
  
  4a. Using your adopted horses work them into your goal breed by crossing them into your current herd being sure to only keep foals with above average comments
  
  Or
  
  4b. Cross the foundation horses together working your way up through the comments towards green
  
  5a. Once your goal breed is back to pure; work your way up through the comments by crossing them together
  
  5b. Once you are reliably getting greens in your foundation herd, cross them into your goal breed herd until you have reached purebreds (being sure to keep only positive comment foals!)
  
  6b. Refer to step 5a
  
  1. This step is fairly self explanatory. However keep in mind the fact that due to conformational restraints it is (at Larissa’s best guess) only possible to get 5 greens (including intelligence). So my suggestion is to first pick a discipline that you want to compete in and then refer to the discipline summary here. Once you have your discipline look at the four stats judged in that discipline. They are listed in order of most important to least important. I would suggest your first green stat project be that stat of most importance.
  
  2. When you go to the adoption center check out the area labeled “stat ranges” (refer to figure 1a below if you are lost on this) this will show all 8 stats and the ranges of genes (from poor, average or good) found in that breed. You will obviously want to choose a breed that carries the “good” range for your chosen stat. Some stats have up to two breeds with “good” ranges, the one you choose will be personal preference. Some might choose one over the other because one has given them better luck. Alternatively you can also just go for the breed that ties more closely into your goal breed.
  
  3. For this step I would recommend adopting at least 20 mares and 10 studs so you can afford to be choosy. If you are like me and forever hurting for pony tokens check out the sales and stud markets to see what you can pick up. I recommend using the filters in the markets to select the foundation breed of your choice and then select “purebred”. If you find the pickings are slim you can then branch out into the crossbreds. Once you have assembled your herd (either through purchase or adoption) weed out and either rehome or sell anything with average or below comments. When you have finished you will want to have 5+ mares and 1-2 studs to start your herd. However you can start with as little as one mare and one stud.
  
  4. This is where things branch off and can get tricky for me to explain. The process will end up being the same no matter which branch you take but the road to getting there is a bit different. If you follow the ‘a’ path then you will take your foundation horses and cross the mares to your goal breed stud with the best comment for the stat you want. You will do the same for your foundation stud and your goal breed mares. You will then take the offspring and cross them again to PUREBRED horses of your goal breed. You cannot cross the offspring together or you will never get any further than ‘Breed A x Breed B’. You have to repeat this process for 6+ generations to get your horses back to pure. Alternatively you can cross your foundation horses to a third breed and then cross the offspring back to your goal breed to get ‘Half Goal Breed’ offspring. I do not recommend that method because you never know what genes that third breed could be hiding and can potentially contaminate your project. Make sure to keep offspring with only better than average comments in your chosen stat. If you choose to follow plan ‘b’ then refer to step 5 below.
  
  5. Right, so you have your horses and now you are ready to breed them and get working on those greens. The logical next step is to breed those suckers and get those babies cooking. Once you get your babies you gotta sort them and unless you’re prepared to become a hoarder you’ll have to brace yourself to do some rehoming. My recommendation is this: Keep fillies with equal or better comments than their dams and keep colts with better comments than their sires. Sometimes studs won’t produce a colt with a better comment and that is fine, keep some colts with an equal comment just in case. You then have to repeat this process over and over and it will eventually lead you to a green. It is not always an easy process. Some stats are harder than others to get and you just have to keep at it until you reach the end. If you followed plan ‘a’ you can stop here once you get your greens. For plan ‘b’ once you get your greens you then have to refer to the process in step ‘4’ above and then repeat the process here in step ‘5’.

Fig1a.

[Alaina]

Feel free to post any questions below and I'll add them to this list with any answer I can give (don't know everything so might not have one!).

Guide Questions and Answers:

• Q1. I have followed the guide and got two colts out of my stud with better comments than his, which one do I use?

• • A: There are two answers to this depending on how you wanna work things. If you are a basic player or can’t be bothered with conformation then just pick whichever one you like best! If you can look (or can get someone to look for you) then take a look at the conformation value for your chosen stat. Is one of them lower? Then that should be the one to use. Why you ask? Well the answer is located in Larissa’s guide mentioned above:
    

    if your horse has a great breeders report comment, and a poor conformation value, you can guess that the horse must then have very high natural genes to overcome the poor conformation and still end up with a great comment.

• Q2. How do I know if I am reading a average or better comment?

• • A: Have a look at keywords in the comments you are reading. An average comment will contain words or phrases like “average”, “middle”, or “same as” paired with “most” or “rest”. A so-so comment will contain words like “pretty” or “fairly”. A good comment will contain words like “great”, “good”, “natural”, or “well”. Watch for exclamations like “Wow”, “Boy”, or “Gee” as these can indicate a really great or really poor comment.

• Q2. How do I know which comments are better than others? What if I get a comment that doesn’t contain any of the keywords listed above?

• • A: The easy answer is this: If you wanna know which comments will get you close to greens take a look at horses with greens and take note of the comment. If you start seeing that comment in your herd, you know you are on the right track! Try and build a list of the comments you get. Make note of the comments your horses started with and then which comments you get next. Eventually you’ll have your own list that you can use again and again for reference. A good place to seek out horses with greens would be Argent’s green survey located here

[Alaina]

As I've been continuing on my movement project I've been taking notes and I'll add my observations here.

Notes:

[heartbeatforhorses]

When you are trying to get greens for a certain thing should you keep good comment horses even if they have reds in other things?