Closed Thread.

[buzzy]

Yes, I would like to help you with this, besides, I hate my stock right now!

[Thundering Horses]

Yes, I would like to help you with this, besides, I hate my stock right now!

Do you want puzzled anymore?

[Royale Ranch]

Thanks for the welcome
Most of the first part that you wrote doubly confirmed what I was already thinking – but some great points in there.
Great insight from external websites – actually something that I haven’t looked into. I appreciate it. And again, great explanation with answering my previous question. I know you’ve said before that I don’t need to reply or thankyou for every little thing that you say – but just know that I do lol coz you are seriously amazing for helping like this … and your knowledge (and patience) is outstanding

So now on to: 'body shape areas that apparently affect stamina'

So one must ask oneself: Is focusing solely on stamina the correct 'conformation' to focus on? It is indeed the most important trait, but should it be the sole focus? In this I must answer that I would focus on this as the overriding factor, such as if two traits are affected on one conformation stat, then stamina should be prioritized, but the other factors should make an appearance, not just be completely ignored.
As I type this, I realize that you probably have already, or would have come to this same conclusion.

Yes and no. similar to what I did wrong with the breeding before… I started off taking every detail into account but ended up scraping it coz it got messy lol…now im back to no shortcuts.

face profile: dished

Light is the ideal face, stay away from heavy faces at all costs. This one is easy.
But whether this means dished or not, I don't know. I can offer what to look for, but since I don't use conformation stats, I can't really offer insight into what it actually looks like...

Okay. So im assuming that the ‘dished/concave’ profile in comparison to the ‘roman/concave’ face profile is light and heavy respectively.
But just so we have it clear… ive chosen two random horses that I assume can be classified as fitting each profile:

Heavy/roman: (which google says is characterised by its convex shape)
http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/429

light/dished: (which google says the following: has a muzzle with a concave profile on top, often further emphasized by slight bulging of forehead (jibbah). Dished heads are associated with Arabians and Arabian-influenced breeds, which excel at Endurance riding and were originally bred in the arid Arabian desert.
- And I haven’t actually got a link for a good example here….
[/quote]

point of shoulder?

The horse's point of shoulder is at the front of the chest. If it sits higher, toward the neck it should increase the angle, thereby creating more slope, but for stamina, you want this point to be lower. Therefore, I would also suggest the withers to be less angular, for instance, go for this:


instead of this:

(But I could be wrong with that)

I’ll admit that I’m a little confused here…
The conformation mentions two different features here… first, the withers/shoulder angle and second, the point of shoulder… ive included descriptions as per the conformation…
Withers/shoulder angle (which is what you have shown in the images) – upright to sloped
Sloping shoulders increase a horses range of motion which is advantageous to movement and, to a lesser degree, tempo
Point of shoulder: low to high
The point of shoulder helps determine the slope of the shoulders in combination with the withers. A lower point of shoulder increase the overall slope of the shoulder which is ideal for tempo, stamin and movement.
......lost..

depth of flank:

So a shallow flank can be best described (the way I understood it best), is the greyhound appearance, through the stomach area. A deep flank is the opposite.

Therefore, as the conformation report suggests that “A deep flank is ideal for stamina as it helps to increase the lung capacity while a shallow flank can be better for speed”
I’m thinking leaning towards the deep flank…

I must here add to include …… a longer hip to enhance speed, since it has no negative impact on stamina, the longer the hip, the better the speed stat will be (what you'll be looking for is the two bony parts on the rump, the point of hip to the 'butt bone', the longer this is, the better for speed). ………. You will want to keep a forward stifle as well, and I think as you attempt to lengthen the hip, this stifle may want to migrate backward. The forward stifle helps to enhance agility. And as a last note, the croup height. There are three stats affected here, speed (going downhill, with the higher butt than the withers) and even that aids bot agility and tempo. I'm not sure which one you should focus on, but I'm leaning toward attempting to keep the croup as even as possible, definitely shying away from uphill angles, but not over-exaggerating the downhill racing design).

Thanks for adding this part in. *rubs hands together in glee* very helpful! Obviously im not very familiar with some of this terminology.. but I’m slowly learning lol…

I think you should find your bloodlines and keep a couple from each one that you like and that fits where you want to go, for instance, if you have half siblings or full siblings, but one is definitely better than the other, just keep one.
But for me, I'm too attached most times, so I would breed together and keep just one foal from all the pairs, until I reduce my herd to acceptable numbers. COI would explode upward, but I wouldn't loose any genes. I'm a hard cull'er, but with that comes unacceptable loss if even one breeder disappears without offering an acceptable offspring.

Do you mean from my current bloodlines, or find ‘new’ horses that excel in certain areas? Right now ive moved all my horses to side account so I can get the pt I need… but fingers crossed that shouldn’t take too long.
Re: adoption center horses, typically speaking, do some have weak genes, and some strong, or are they all generally strong in their relevant areas if you know what I mean.. or?? Im possibly overthinking… I guess what im really trying to say is for any adoption center horse, does the physical appearance (conformation) affect the horse much, or at this point, is it (mostly) pure genes?

[Royale Ranch]

oops posted that before ive finished lol... will edit

[BlackOak2]

….

Thanks for the welcome
Most of the first part that you wrote doubly confirmed what I was already thinking – but some great points in there.
Great insight from external websites – actually something that I haven’t looked into. I appreciate it. And again, great explanation with answering my previous question. I know you’ve said before that I don’t need to reply or thankyou for every little thing that you say – but just know that I do lol coz you are seriously amazing for helping like this … and your knowledge (and patience) is outstanding

Some people may argue the point in how my knowledge is outstanding! Hah! Including myself. But if what I do have is helpful for others supplementing what they may lack, then yes, I'll share willingly.
Much of this game (arguably all of it), is based on fact and factual checks for the time that which part of the program is written into the game. Keeping this in mind, the general 'opinion' of the internet can guide us to what could be the correct track here on HWO. So if there's anything that doesn't make sense on HWO, we have the ability to try to make sense of it from the internet and there's a much greater chance (unlike other games) that we can be correct in our assumption.

face profile: dished

Light is the ideal face, stay away from heavy faces at all costs. This one is easy.
But whether this means dished or not, I don't know. I can offer what to look for, but since I don't use conformation stats, I can't really offer insight into what it actually looks like...

Okay. So im assuming that the ‘dished/concave’ profile in comparison to the ‘roman/concave’ face profile is light and heavy respectively.
But just so we have it clear… ive chosen two random horses that I assume can be classified as fitting each profile:

Heavy/roman: (which google says is characterised by its convex shape)
http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/429

light/dished: (which google says the following: has a muzzle with a concave profile on top, often further emphasized by slight bulging of forehead (jibbah). Dished heads are associated with Arabians and Arabian-influenced breeds, which excel at Endurance riding and were originally bred in the arid Arabian desert.
- And I haven’t actually got a link for a good example here….

I didn't even consider that the roman nose would be considered heavy versus the dish would be considered light. Now that you actually said it, it does make good sense. Personally, I was going by the overall size of the face in reference to the overall size of the horse's body. But herein is also a clue to what it could mean, since the overall size of a roman-faced horse generally tends to be 'larger' in reference to it's body, like the overall size of the dished-faced horses tend to be 'smaller' in reference to it's body.

point of shoulder?

The horse's point of shoulder is at the front of the chest. If it sits higher, toward the neck it should increase the angle, thereby creating more slope, but for stamina, you want this point to be lower. Therefore, I would also suggest the withers to be less angular...

I’ll admit that I’m a little confused here…

I made two separate points here. I'll make them a little clearer and see if this helps.
This is the point of shoulder angle. The front point is the point of shoulder. This point of shoulder can be higher or lower on HWO (and indeed in real life). On HWO for stamina, you'll want to decrease this open angle, so you'll want this point of shoulder to migrate downward.

Close the angle, like this:


The second point is this: the definition on the withers, will affect this slope. Less definition on these should (arguably) help to close this angle as well. Although, I could have this backwards... I'm not sure, what I do know is that one of these will help the angle.
This is flat withers (which I think is the one that you'll want to aim for), it makes it look like a flat back.

This is the well defined withers (of course this horse does look a little sway-backed or broke-backed), it makes the back look hollow.

depth of flank:

So a shallow flank can be best described (the way I understood it best), is the greyhound appearance, through the stomach area. A deep flank is the opposite.

Therefore, as the conformation report suggests that “A deep flank is ideal for stamina as it helps to increase the lung capacity while a shallow flank can be better for speed”
I’m thinking leaning towards the deep flank…

I left this one really unanswered, because I think either could really work. Or maybe even a little of both. I think it would come down more to, how much this specific area 'depth of flank' has on the overall conformation stat. If it has less of a direct affect, personally I'd probably lean toward speed, if only to help enhance a stat that might be a defining factor. If it has more of a direct affect, then indeed I'd lean toward stamina.
I don't think you're incorrect in going for the deep flank. But I also think leaning toward a shallow flank wouldn't necessarily be incorrect either. Which begs the questions, would keeping it somewhere in the middle, benefit both stats? To what degree? And would this be the best option? I have no answer to these questions and would work through tests when I would get up to that stage myself.
With no better information available, I would say the best option for now is what you thought first: deep flank.

I must here add to include …… a longer hip to enhance speed, since it has no negative impact on stamina, the longer the hip, the better the speed stat will be (what you'll be looking for is the two bony parts on the rump, the point of hip to the 'butt bone', the longer this is, the better for speed). ………. You will want to keep a forward stifle as well, and I think as you attempt to lengthen the hip, this stifle may want to migrate backward. The forward stifle helps to enhance agility. And as a last note, the croup height. There are three stats affected here, speed (going downhill, with the higher butt than the withers) and even that aids bot agility and tempo. I'm not sure which one you should focus on, but I'm leaning toward attempting to keep the croup as even as possible, definitely shying away from uphill angles, but not over-exaggerating the downhill racing design).

Thanks for adding this part in. *rubs hands together in glee* very helpful! Obviously im not very familiar with some of this terminology.. but I’m slowly learning lol…

When you're ready to tackle this point of fine-tuning, we'll get more into these and work through the questions that come up if or when they do.

I think you should find your bloodlines and keep a couple from each one that you like and that fits where you want to go, for instance, if you have half siblings or full siblings, but one is definitely better than the other, just keep one.
But for me, I'm too attached most times, so I would breed together and keep just one foal from all the pairs, until I reduce my herd to acceptable numbers. COI would explode upward, but I wouldn't loose any genes. I'm a hard cull'er, but with that comes unacceptable loss if even one breeder disappears without offering an acceptable offspring.

Do you mean from my current bloodlines, or find ‘new’ horses that excel in certain areas? Right now ive moved all my horses to side account so I can get the pt I need… but fingers crossed that shouldn’t take too long.
Re: adoption center horses, typically speaking, do some have weak genes, and some strong, or are they all generally strong in their relevant areas if you know what I mean.. or?? Im possibly overthinking… I guess what im really trying to say is for any adoption center horse, does the physical appearance (conformation) affect the horse much, or at this point, is it (mostly) pure genes?

I was a little fuzzy minded when I got to the end apparently.
I meant that you should seriously consider each one of your current bloodstock for their worth and use in your current project. Maybe you should create a sliding scale and pick out a number of the most important points you want to focus on (report comments will be a good starting point and follow up with conformation scores and if you have any competition records these should play a heavy part as well). Then overall scale your herd. Find what point on that scale is unacceptable and drop all those below that point. If you use a sliding scale however, make sure you compensate for report comments that are weaker overall, but strong for that specific horse.
This sliding scale may not work so well for you however, it takes time to evaluate each horse individually then as a bloodstock herd in total.
How you decide to keep your stock should have both weight and merit and don't go by just one cull-or-keep rule. That was what I was attempting to say.
The bloodstock that you have now, does have good qualities. You need to consider heavily whether you want to just trash and start from scratch or you want to build anew on the stock you have. Either way you handle it, you will achieve your end goal and either way you choose may take just as long... or not. I suppose it comes down to how attached you are to any individual horse or your whole herd.

AC horses do have weaker genes, but only because these are 'base' genes and they haven't been improved upon. Each breed in the AC has a scale of where their specific genes will fall and each horse's genes can fall anywhere on this scale. As an example, the belgian strength and the arabian strength. The belgians will always have good strength genes, even if their comment isn't that great, whereas the arabian will always have much weaker strength genes, even if their comment is halfway decent. I could go so far to say that the strongest arabian strength genes will never even meet the weakest strength genes in a belgian. I don't know how large the scale is, so I don't know how true my comment could be.
So no gene in their relevant areas will always be 'strong', but also, in those relevant areas, no gene will be weaker than it 'should' be, whatever that sliding scale says is the weakest point. In my mind, such genes that are supposed to be strong in designated stats should always trump those same genes that are weak in those same stats on other breeds.
Also, physical appearance (conformation scores) will affect AC horses as much as any blooded horse we breed. So if by chance you find an uphill belgian with really flat hips and a really strong strength report comment, perhaps this belgian has super-strong strength genes and should be favored over a belgian that fits the general appearance of the rest.
Whenever I pick from the AC, I always consider appearance and color and not just because I'm breeding for appearance and color right now. If I'm pulling directly from the AC rather than purchasing from the market an AC horse, I will look for horses that appear to offer in areas that I'm hoping to get. For instance, if I'm looking for good racing stock, instead of looking for a turk or NAB with an uphill stature, I'm more likely to pick up one of these breeds with a flat or even downhill stature. These horse's already have high speed stats (at least the turks do, NAB's are median), so when one of these downhill versions are snapped up and the breeding report has a gold speed comment, I can assume that the gold comment isn't based wholly off of the conformation stat and must get a good deal of it from the genes. Or at least, this is my thought process.