Thoughts on Conformation?

[Weaving]

I'm not quite a month old on this game yet, but I've been suckered in to a premium account. I've been working pretty hard lately at breeding horses with strong conformation's for their event, in my case Belgians for Log Pull.

I was just wondering how much attention you guys pay to conformation vs breeding report? For those who do pay quite some attention, do you have cut off points etc?

I was pretty chuffed with this mare mostly for her nice high strength number. Is this really that important?

[kidhedera]

Wooow, 21! That is pretty impressive. I'm still excited if my horses get conformation scores that aren't negative. >.>

Ok, so I started playing a few months ago, but had to go on hiatus for a bit cos of real life stuff, so when I started we didn't have the conformation page. So I was using these images as a rough guide for conformation: Perfect Conformation 1, Perfect Conformation 2. They might interest you.

I am trying to breed Forest Horses that are black and have feathering for people who are breeding new Friesian blood lines. Initially I was focusing on dressage and hunter/sports type horses, but then I was looking at the 'Perfect Conformation' pictures and I thought that since I really like the shape of the saddleseat horse best, why not focus on saddleseat traits instead?

So my rules are: Rehome if there are any reds or negative comments on a saddleseat trait (except for intelligence. Intelligence still can't be red, but negative comments aren't too bad for now). Eventually I'll rehome any horses without 4 positive comments for saddleseat traits (Balance, Movement, Agility, Intelligence btw).

Now, for the actual conformation - generally I found most of my horses had pretty terrible conformation when I first reactivated my premium account and could actually *see* what was happening there, but just one generation of crossing horses keeping in mind the notes on that page and I have mostly got foals with at least one positive conformation score. (Usually under +6 tho). (If I was a hero in a fantasy novel I would apparently not be able to do the whole 'I have an eye for horse flesh!' thing, cos it seems I don't. My poor pixel ponies!)

I'm pretty lenient at this point. I know I'll get stricter as I get further along, but I'm finding sometimes horses that look like they *should* do well in saddleseat are just terrible, and horses that look like nothing much get saddleseat scores of 40+ in local competition without any training. So I'm cautious with rehoming for now.

I think that there's a bit of a synergy thing going on. Like its not easy to tell exactly how a horse is going to perform in a discipline. You've got their breeders report (which is not 100% accurate, by design), their conformation score (which I imagine has a similar 'deliberate imperfection' to it?), their training, their weight, and I expect a tiny amount of random noise worked into the algorithm or my horses would get the exact same score every time they compete without training in between. Am I forgetting anything? Anyway. I find the most accurate way to assess a horses potential in a discipline is to spend a turn doing local competitions with them when they are untrained and then average their scores.

[Weaving]

I think your rules sound pretty sensible, my problem now is that whilst I used to have consistently good breeder's reports, they have started to suffer a little at the hands of the conformation report. I'm still searching for that mystical horse who scores decently in both! As for the putting through local shows, I train a lot of mine on the account I breed on and I can't really afford the time spent on a local show (that and with the huge variation in scores, one local show, like you said, isn't really enough to accurately gauge their ability.)

I know what you mean about the 'random noise' I certainly feel like some of my horses who aren't so great on paper have a sprinkle of fairy dust somewhere along the line, but by the same token I've had some who I thought were going to be monster competitors just outright fail. Mind you isnt that the way in real life hahaha!

[kidhedera]

Yeah, you have to do at least 5 local shows and average them to get a really useful idea.
I like the local shows cos I get a bit of XP, money, free days and free pony tokens from them. On my alt account which I don't buy tokens on I earned about 450PT or so just from local shows. Soooo don't write them off entirely. And you only need to waste one turn assessing a horse, and it can save you time on the horse later (or save you from accidentally selling a great performer like I almost did earlier today).

I do love the complexity, and I'm sure as I learn more and breed more horses I'll eventually get some real champs. The game is only just starting to see horses with 3-4 green stats being bred (I think Argent bred the first 4 green stat horse pretty recently), so I wouldn't feel too bad about your progress.

[Aela]

If it helps, this is how I do

When the conformation tabs were introduced my minimum standards were like this:
More than 3 negative stats on breeding report = rehoming
Less than 2 stars in breed evaluation = rehoming
More than a total of -90 in conformation = rehoming

Over time it slowly develops, and now my standards are like this:
More than 2 negative stats on breeding report = rehoming
Less than 2 stars in evaluation = rehoming
More than a total of -60 in conformation = rehoming

I try to compare my mares and stallions to get the best possible outcome
My best horse conformation-wise had a totalt of -16 after adding everything up

[kidhedera]

Thanks for the input Aela, that sounds nicely streamlined.

What are your thoughts on stats irrelevant to your breed/discipline, since some of the traits are 'mutually exclusive'?

[Aela]

Strenght is my expendable stat. It's a shame it's the first stat on the report, always makes my horses look worse

Otherwise I try to breed as "perfect" horses as I can get, which is stil a loooooooooong way down the road.
Here are a couple examples of my horses. The first one has decent conformation, and the second has worse conformation but better evaluation. I try to decide whether I can "bend" my own rules of breeding when I get foals with brilliant (example) conformation but terrible stats.

[SFH] Freyr Sølvfjeld


[SFH] Oðinn Sølvfjeld

[Weaving]

Sounds like local shows are going to have to be something I do more often, I wonder if I could be awfully cheeky and ask what sort of score you guys look for in your local show results from an untrained horse? Maybe what level you'd expect them to 'win' at?

[Argent II]

I find the most accurate way to assess a horses potential in a discipline is to spend a turn doing local competitions with them when they are untrained and then average their scores.

Not the most accurate method. Horses with zero training perform at similar levels, so it is more accurate to put some training on them first

I do love the complexity, and I'm sure as I learn more and breed more horses I'll eventually get some real champs. The game is only just starting to see horses with 3-4 green stats being bred (I think Argent bred the first 4 green stat horse pretty recently), so I wouldn't feel too bad about your progress.

Yes I did, and it took two weeks! XD sort of; I used my two-green horses from my September Thoroughbred project as a foundation. Nice change from the stress of my Lipizzan project.

More than a total of -90 in conformation = rehoming

More than a total of -60 in conformation = rehoming

Not the best way to go about it. If a trait is not necessary for your chosen discipline, there's no reason to cull based on them. This guy is -20 overall, including the irrelevant Agility, Speed, and Stamina conformation, but +15 for just dressage attributes. This guy is -31 overall, but +6 for dressage traits, and as a dressage horse, he clearly isn't hurt by the -22 in agility.

Sounds like local shows are going to have to be something I do more often, I wonder if I could be awfully cheeky and ask what sort of score you guys look for in your local show results from an untrained horse? Maybe what level you'd expect them to 'win' at?

I very rarely use local shows for testing horses anymore, but when I did during my September project, I expected a minimum score of 20%, and average score over 25%, and for stallions, at least one score over 30% in dressage. Nate expects a horse to gain two or three levels in LS, meaning that if they could win at level 2 without training, they should be able to win at level 4 with training. Going by scores, I expect high scores in the low to mid 40s from the few stallions that I train once they are nearly completely trained.

[Weaving]

I find the most accurate way to assess a horses potential in a discipline is to spend a turn doing local competitions with them when they are untrained and then average their scores.

Not the most accurate method. Horses with zero training perform at similar levels, so it is more accurate to put some training on them first

I do love the complexity, and I'm sure as I learn more and breed more horses I'll eventually get some real champs. The game is only just starting to see horses with 3-4 green stats being bred (I think Argent bred the first 4 green stat horse pretty recently), so I wouldn't feel too bad about your progress.

Yes I did, and it took two weeks! XD sort of; I used my two-green horses from my September Thoroughbred project as a foundation. Nice change from the stress of my Lipizzan project.

More than a total of -90 in conformation = rehoming

More than a total of -60 in conformation = rehoming

Not the best way to go about it. If a trait is not necessary for your chosen discipline, there's no reason to cull based on them. This guy is -20 overall, including the irrelevant Agility, Speed, and Stamina conformation, but +15 for just dressage attributes. This guy is -31 overall, but +6 for dressage traits, and as a dressage horse, he clearly isn't hurt by the -22 in agility.

Sounds like local shows are going to have to be something I do more often, I wonder if I could be awfully cheeky and ask what sort of score you guys look for in your local show results from an untrained horse? Maybe what level you'd expect them to 'win' at?

I very rarely use local shows for testing horses anymore, but when I did during my September project, I expected a minimum score of 20%, and average score over 25%, and for stallions, at least one score over 30% in dressage. Nate expects a horse to gain two or three levels in LS, meaning that if they could win at level 2 without training, they should be able to win at level 4 with training. Going by scores, I expect high scores in the low to mid 40s from the few stallions that I train once they are nearly completely trained.

Gosh! Thanks for all your help! I've been playing around with the local showing thing and rehoming anything that didn't win 3 from 5 at level 3, so I guess by some miracle I've ended up doing that roughly correct, as I'd want my horses to be scoring 50+ feet at log pull once they're finished training (so winning at level 5).

I am a little overwhelmed at the sense of comradery and community on this game, I've played many a horse game in my time and nothing has come close! So lovely to be offered so much help even though I'm still a new face.