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The Hidden Competition Genes: All About Heart
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BlackOak2
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The Hidden Competition Genes: All About Heart
The Hidden Competition Genes
All About Heart
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Even though we, as a community, are fairly certain this Heart Gene exists, there are a number of us that suspect there may be other hidden competition genes still. Although this topic is entitled The Hidden Competition Genes: All About Heart, I will be including any information I find and know (or suspect) about any of these hidden genes. This topic will just be mostly on the one gene that the community is 'fairly certain' that it already exists.
And, before I get into it, to be clear, this isn't just my information that I've collected through the years. This is a guide written by combining many senior, junior and even newbie (at the time) questions, answers and experiences. So, I can only take the credit of finally pulling all of this into one place.
For ease of use (and to ensure the horses are memorialized, instead of rehomed), I will be almost wholly using example horses that I own or that have already passed away.
Brief History
I know, personally, I had come up across horses that should do well, but for some reason, just do not. I know I've spoken to many other players (some seniors of mine) throughout my gameplay. Unless my memory fails me, I think the most constructive early conversation was with a player named Veterinarian. In speaking, at some... LONG length, I began to hash out exactly what the hidden gene might be, what it might do and how it might be coded into the game. But, this isn't the only long conversation I've had with senior members, trying to understand it, both trying to explain it to others and trying to glean more information for myself.
There was another time I had an extended conversation, back in 2020, to multiple Record Holder producer Jockey'sHolding. This senior member produced (among others) these following Record Holders in Harness Racing:
NSA Pretty Cool
NSA Burnished
NSA Warrior Impressions
NSA Excitable
NSA A Warrior's Hush
NSA Expectation
Why do I mention these? Because without taking into consideration this hidden Heart Gene (as well as possible other hidden competition genes), your chance of creating Record Holders gets a little harder and a little longer.
And these two senior members I named are very far from the only ones that have produced Record Holders and also very far from the only one's I've ever spoken to about these hidden genes. I name these two in particular, because the long conversation I had with each of them about the Heart Gene in particular, really stuck to me and helped me (more the former, then the later) develop the understanding I have of this Heart Gene, as we understand it today.
Are these the only ones? HAY! No! Absolutely not! are they the only ones that contributed to my understanding, or to the community's understanding. They were the ones that influenced my understanding to deeper levels at the time I spoke to them. There were plenty others afterward and even a few before as well.
Anyway, onward to the guide.
To The Heart Of The Horse
This will, indeed, be the longest section. So get comfortable.
What is the heart gene exactly?
To keep it plain and straightforward, the heart gene is the 'will to win'.
But there are many forms of the 'will to win' and frustratingly so. To ensure that our horses aren't just the usual on/off, win/lose of every other game out there, our gracious (if sometimes aggravating, but all in a good way) admins have written into the game quite a few hidden genes that ensure that the best-looking horses (top HGP, top BR, top conformation scores) are not necessarily the best at every discipline here. Okay, maybe 'quite a few hidden genes' is taking too much liberty. I don't know if there are 'quite a few', there may only be one or two actually 'hidden' that they'll never really confirm or deny. Suffice to say, the heart gene is indeed one that we, the community are fairly certain exists.
And recently, there appears to be other hidden competition aspects that some of us are beginning to suspect.
[quote]Horses may also have preference for one discipline above another, beyond what their stats and conformation say they should excel at. This is also something that can only be tested for through competitions.
Experimentation and observation. - Silverine[/quote]
What are these other ones? Well, we suspect they are directly related to the disciplines themselves. So although we don't know what they are, we suspect they may be 'per discipline'. So there might be one that's coded for an affinity for sprint racing and one that's coded for an affinity for log pulling and so on. Is there a coding for an affinity for each discipline? I don't know. What could it mean? I suspect... if it exists... that it's simply an on/off style that makes them just a little more apt to do just a little better for just a little more often. What would the difference actually result in? Well, in my mind, if (not considering heart) your horse would usually pull [in five starts] one first, two seconds and two thirds, the affinity for that discipline may be more like one first, three seconds and one third. But in reality, I think it's more attributable to the score itself. Something perhaps like a 5% betterment in their overall score. Probably much less, maybe something like a 1% betterment. So to not lend any actual 'super-horse' ability, but enough to perform better against a horse with better heart.
But... the question of whether these affinity genes exist, is the real inquiry.
So I'll leave it there. I don't know. There does seem to be a difference of some horses, even accounting for heart genes. Maybe there are affinity genes as well. Without further in-depth study (I'm not sure how to attack such a thing), we may not be able to answer this question.
In order to win in competitions, all that a horse really needs (at first) is raw talent. These are indicated by the BR, the HGP and the conformation score. Basically. Any horse can win low levels with just these. But without heart, a horse can't go up against other horses that have heart and still expect to win. In these grayer areas, a horse that has a vast different in raw talent, can still lose, and fairly sorely, against horses that appear to be quite obviously their inferiors.
Take, for instance, these two horses.
There can be horses that are specialized in a single discipline, like this brilliant stallion who pulled a world record in poles:
Cobalt Basilisk
He has five disciplines (all very closely related) that he's maintained a WPS above 70%, but only three of these have about half of this count, as first placements.
Alternately, his full brother:
Snow Babe
Who did not earn any world records, but has a remarkably similar body form and with only slightly different overall stats, has maintained six disciplines over 70% WPS, but only two have nearly half firsts.
This full brother, I consider a specialized generalist.
The differences between these two certainly don't stop there. My record holder, Cobalt Basilisk maintained just two disciplines at or above level 7 in player-hosted competitions, Saddleseat at level 7 and Poles at level 9. But Snow Babe maintained four at or above level 7. Racing, Sprint and Harness were all level 7 with a level 8 in steeplechase.
So what's the real differences?
My line that I'm showing you here (along with their ancestors and descendants and cousins) have all been fully tested to check for heart, generalist abilities and in a couple cases, specialist breeding (these two were specialist breeding, specifically from their dame and outbred to a top-competing sire in appropriate disciplines). But if I had to put these two up against each other, I'd put my money on Snow Babe to beat his brother nine out of ten times in everything, including poles. If based on poles only, my odds would still be in the seven out of ten times area for Snow Babe to still win.
Why? Because Snow Babe's overall raw talent may not be as strong as his brother, but his heart has taken him further and in more disciplines. Take a look at their raw talent broken down by stats:
*Notes: I used the Score Guide from Silverine's Discipline Potential Evaluation to pull the hard numbers for visual analysis between the differences of the BR's.
I purposefully copied the layout of the BR and the conformation scores to mimic the way we've become accustomed to read them. And also purposefully left off Intelligence from the scores. For those that suffer from color blindness and you find the table is difficult or impossible to read, please let me know what I might be able to change to help that.
Even though there appears to be a lot of difference between these two horses, there isn't as much as one may think. It does add up, though. So why do I put my money on Snow Babe, instead of my Record Holder? Because Snow Babe has a little more uniformity in his performance.
Well, maybe I'm wrong and maybe these two brothers were a bad example. They're solid and similar but with fairly different outcomes in disciplines and records. So, at this juncture, whether I've succeeded or not, I'll leave it open to further debate if debate feels appropriate.
As I've said before, Heart is best described as 'the will to win'. But what exactly does this mean? Okay, I'll explain this multiple different ways throughout here, because I know just one definition doesn't always cover everybody's understanding. So... say... you have a horse, you have it trained (either for a discipline or fully) and you've been using this horse in the locals. And this horse has been always pulling first, in level 10 of ... whatever discipline you chose. And you start getting a little curious and you look at the world record times and suddenly you're like:
Oh! My! THIS horse is matching (or beating) some of these current world record times! WOW! So... you decide to start entering this horse into player hosted competitions. And suddenly, your horse is pulling thirds and fourths and just having his proverbial butt handed to him. You take a closer look and realize he's not pulling anywhere near the times you saw in his locals.
And you're rather heartbroken. Yeah... this is the lack of heart. And... all of us have been here at some point.
But... exactly what is heart? It's the difference between a first and a second, or a second and a third. It's the competition record reading 50 starts, 30 firsts, 15 seconds and 5 thirds rather than 50 starts, 20 firsts, 10 seconds, 20 thirds. It's that catching of the eye of the judges in the good way, rather than the bad way. Or the horse that performs under you perfectly, regardless of the hissy-fit it had in the warm-up ring. It's the fire in the eye as the horse sizes up it's competition.
And on this game? It helps to create an avenue to allow a different course to the winner's circle. Insofar as breeding the best HGP to the best HGP just isn't enough. It makes using strategy and understanding 'what makes a winner' the important course of action instead of mindless breeding for the top stats.
And it answers the question: How do we separate our game from the others, whereas the top horses always have the top stats and nothing more?
So. Heart has little use in locals (there's some suggestion that it can enable a horse to earn more firsts, but doesn't appear to do much else and cannot appear to be used to determine heart ability). Heart isn't used in any other aspect of this game, except for in player hosted competitions (that we're aware of). And we don't necessarily need heart for our competition horses to compete successfully in those player hosted competitions. However, having it (especially as the horse competes in higher levels), becomes exceedingly important and useful.
So by planning to find a horse on the market that has proven heart (or is a proven producer of heart), or by working on heart at the beginning of your breeding project, you will be ensuring you're setting yourself up for success.
But, of course, it's not that easy. It's never that easy. Let's get into it further, by getting into what we've come to theorize about the genes themselves.
The Spirit Behind The Genes
Okay, so we don't know the genes that work this. To keep things a bit straightforward and simple, for this topic (from here onward) I'll be using h to indicate heart and n to indicate the absence of, or the smallest form of. I, also, don't know if it's dominant or recessive either.
We only have theory on this gene.
And that there appears to be much more to this than a simple on/off switch. As in, a horse either has it or it does not.
We understand enough to say that our competition horses don't fall into just the two categories of 'heart = always winning' and 'no heart = always losing'. So because of this, we've theorized that there is at least an incomplete gene at work, so like: 'two heart = always winning' (h/h), 'one heart = sometimes winning' (h/n) and 'no heart = always losing' (n/n).
Well, I'm a bit liberal with the 'always winning' and 'always losing' parts. I'm not saying that heart always equals winning. So if you're confused about that, did you read the part above this one? If you did and you're still confused, please let me know what and where, and I'll add to it to try to clear up the confusion.
In my opinion, (after having working with a long line of all-competition-tested horses) I have come to the conclusion that there are at least five variations of the heart gene. But I haven't yet figured out how they work together.
These five that I appear to have been able to pin down, go from weakest to strongest: No Heart, Weak Heart (Okay Heart), Average Heart, Strong Heart, Exceptional Heart, Intermittent Heart.
You count six, right? That's because I actually consider the (n/n) as the absence of the heart gene. So, five variations with the option to not have any heart at all. 
This is because when I worked with breeding these absent-of-heart horses, I had no luck at all to develop heart in the line, unless I bred out to a horse with the gene.
However, perhaps it was just my luck.
[quote]As far as I can tell, all horses have at least a baseline level of heart. If you're starting out with non-competitive horses it will take longer, but by only breeding together the horses who perform best (compared to others in your program) you can increase how much heart your stock has. - Aubergine[/quote]
I'm a breeder, not a competitor. So even though I take into account the heart gene, with the exception of my personal competition line and the Lp Tb club lines, I don't test and breed for competition heart until much later (my other projects are not ripe enough to start working on the competition heart).
So, what defines these five... er... six variations of yours?
No Heart
This appears to be fairly obvious. But it's a bit further than just not existing. When I say that a competition horse has 'no heart', I mean that the horse doesn't ever perform in player hosted competitions at all. It's not that they're running on raw talent, it's more like their 'on-paper' belongs to an entirely different horse. It's like their lack of heart actually hurts their baseline, instead of not helping them at all.
I'd like to offer a horse like this, but I don't own one that's been thoroughly tested to show the depth and width of how these horse's fail. Suffice to say, their raw talent (on-paper) suggests that the horse can compete relatively well, but when they do, it's more like they're running backwards on the track, running through the jumps on the course or finding the water in the trail course a much better place to roll in, then to pay attention to the trail at all. They simply Do Not perform in any manner or in any discipline.
I have seen a handful of these horses; they are disappointing, to say the least. Luckily, they don't really seem to be the norm.
Weak Heart (Okay Heart)
These horses appear to be what most of the competition trials on HWO are made of. We try them a number of times, they don't really go anywhere... maybe they hold their own, but when looking over their raw talent (on-paper), you get the distinct feeling that they really should be doing better than they are.
'For whatever reason, this horse just isn't really performing.'
Such horses regularly get beaten by rivals, especially those you think they should at least keep up with, but aren't necessarily at the back of the pack. They're just middling. Not bad, really not good, but not exactly failing either. I've also called these, on occasion, as Okay Hearts. I've done this from time to time to remind myself that 'some heart is better than nothing'. And even these horses can have some sparks of brilliance in their career, but it's mostly just lucky breaks. There are times I want to pull these two apart, because I think there might be a difference between these two. One sometimes does appear to have a difference between the other. But overall, this one, the Weak Heart, the nickname I sometimes use, Okay Heart and the next level, the Average Heart, if I were to separate these as three, instead of two, I would find these horses as a sliding scale instead of separate types.
Average Heart
Now, when seeing the raw talent of a horse, looking over all of their 'on-paper' stats, these horses perform as you expect a horse to perform. They pull their placements and achieve their scores right where you expect them to land. They are no better than what your information suggests, but they're also no worse.
It would really be nice if most of the horses in our competitions have this average style heart, sadly, we still have a fairly significant rift between competition horses with heart and those with... less heart. So overall, our competition horses with average heart are still a bit uncommon when you move outside of specifically bred competition bloodlines.
However. There are a lot of simply unknown horses out there. Many, many horses that have never hit any discipline at all. So there may be quite a few more of these types waiting to be discovered.
Strong Heart
These are a bit more fun.
When you look over these horses stats, you figure something along the lines of: 'Well, he should be able to do something. I wonder if he'll be able to keep up?' And they do. Not only do they keep up, they beat out horses that you figure would best them. And they keep doing it.
They surprise you again and again and you're like: 'Yes! Finally got one that can compete with the big boys!'
These horses most often get beat out by a particular type of competitor; those with the same heart, better heart AND with better stats. It's a bit uncommon, even maybe rare that they'll falter to other horses you look at and decide they're superior to.
Exceptional Heart
...YEAH... Oh! Yeah!
It's interesting and So Fun! To have these horses. The best ones often look a tad mediocre too. The type that you're like: 'Well... I'll give him a go. See what he does.' And BAM! It's like the horse can't lose!
Yeah, they do, from time to time, but it's rare and appears to be for the weirdest things.
Intermittent Heart
Well. These horses aren't my favorite types. They win a bunch, then lose a bunch. Like they have great days where they're: 'I'm eating my competition for breakfast!' and then they'll have truly awful days that they're instead like: 'Eh. You want me to do what now? I'm not feeling it. Go away.' And follow it up with a rear barrel shot.
And their score swing is generally far wider than other horses. Their weakest low scores and their strongest high scores are lower and higher than other competitors.
But they still do have a place as this 'best' heart. As of the writing of this guide, most of our record holders have this style of heart.
Why is this? Likely because these horses were bred to first and most often and because of their record holder statuses, in effect spreading their genes around the site and encouraging more of these types of hearts to run rampant.
So... is that all 'we' know about the heart gene? Not quite. You see, we're still not sure whether this is a static style gene or a buildable style gene.
What's the difference? Well, a static style gene is one that's either there or it is not. For instance, your horse is either red, or it is not. It is black, or it is not. Even though I said there are multiple variations of the heart gene and a horse can theoretically have different hearts (and the hearts genes they may work in conjunction with each other), having a static style heart gene means that there is a limited amount of 'heart' that any horse can ever achieve and that this limited heart will always fall into a limited number of styles. Any horse will only ever have ONE of these types of hearts and potentially TWO that it can ever pass onto any offspring. Well... that's assuming that there's just a single gene with two alleles controlling it.
The buildable style is one that works more like the Tobiano gene and the Leopard Complex gene. The more you breed it in, the more the heart gene builds up. In this case, though the horse can fall into one of the aforementioned types, there can be a stronger or weaker version in each of these types. Just like with weight, where there are multiple pounds in the moderate area before the horse switches to either moderately fat or moderately thin.
I haven't seen too much evidence to suggest that there is a buildable heart gene, but I haven't found enough evidence to say that it's not either. I have only found enough evidence to suggest that there are certain and specifically different styles of heart.
Also now. About the interaction between them. Here's a quick run-through of the limited knowledge I've come to a shaky theory on.
Intermittent Hearts appear to prefer to throw more intermittent offspring... and at an intermittent rate! Once it's in your herd, it appears to be quite difficult to breed out. They'll also throw weak and even a rare, no-heart foal on a fairly regular basis. They're just all over the place in practically every area. But perhaps that's too much of my own bias coming through.
Exceptional Hearts appear to favor throwing strong hearted and average hearted offspring, regardless of the other parent, but can be born from average hearted parents.
Sometimes average hearted and weak hearted parents will through an intermittent heart foal, but it (at least in my experience) appears to be quite rare.
And finally, horses with at least average heart and better do appear to throw more of the better quality foals than those with weak or low hearts and sometimes almost despite their partner.
How To Find The Passion
Everybody has their own ways to go about testing and trialing their stock. To date, however, there appears to be only one surefire way to test for this elusive and theorized Heart Gene (and perhaps also any other hidden talent genes that may or may not exist). And that singular way is to stuff them into player hosted competitions and develop a competition record.
Without competing against other horses, a horse's competitiveness will remain unknown.
So in this section, I will outline my own two procedures that have worked for me. Other people may have different versions and they're welcome to post their preferred methods below. If added, I'll include them into this section (copy & paste method), so please ensure they're fairly well worded (I can correct minimal grammar and spelling, if needed).
Feel free to adopt any of the following procedures and make it your own.
However, before I get into the methods themselves, I want to touch on some other related subjects.
Back Theory.
A horse doesn't need to be fully (or even partially) trained to utilize any of these following methods (unless otherwise stated). If testing a horse in player hosted competitions without training, one needs to keep in mind the following points.
Even with the following methods, you will want to keep an eye on the competition. Sometimes a horse will just be pitted against just the wrong rival and just the wrong times. So either make sure your competition is alternating (not the same two or three horses), or actually look at the other horses in those competitions after it runs to make sure you're not getting some false readings.
Option One: The Straightforward & Short Method
Take your (assuming trained, if untrained, see the list above and alter accordingly) horse and enter him into just four level 10 of the desired disciplines.
Wait for them to run.
Any discipline that has a 75% win rate (this is 3 placements that fall into first, second or third places), enter these disciplines again.
This time, you will want to enter 16 additional competitions from level 7 to level 10 (try to get a good mix). A few level 6 competitions is acceptable but attempt to not mix them with your one or two level 5 entries, if you need them.
In this way, you're looking for your total of 20 recorded competitions.
When all 20 are run, any discipline that has at least a 70% WPS (win, place, show, that's first, second and third), your horse may be revealing a heart. Your horse certainly appears to have a talent for that discipline!
Have fun.
Option Two: Baseline
This method is a little longer, but perhaps a little more methodical.
First, you will need some baseline data.
Run a number of your foals in locals, level 10 of your preferred discipline.
Take note of only their times (NOT their placements). Take a strong sampling from a number of your randomly-picked foals. Try to hit in the 50-sampling range. Maybe 10 locals from one, 15 from another, 10 from another, etc.
The aim is to acquire a sampling of your herd and not a sampling of just one or two horses. Now take the top couple scores and the bottom couple scores and discard them. You're looking right now for a baseline and not 'the best or the worst'. There will always be a small number of quirky results. It's not because the data is bad, it's because there could be a variable affecting them that we don't understand and it can skew the data in a way that's not entirely fair overall.
This becomes your 'herd baseline'. When using this herd baseline, it should give you some data on your heart gene capability of any individual horse, produced from your herd.
Now, each individual horse you will first gain a small sampling of in locals and you will compare it to your herd baseline.
Then, as you enter your horses in player hosted competitions, take note of not just their scores but also their placements. The times run in the player hosted competitions will also be affected by the other horses and what results they posted. Some competitors will encourage your horse to do better, while others will discourage your horse and he'll do worse.
And with both the sampling of your horse in locals, the record you acquired in player hosted and by comparing these two against your herd baseline, you should be able to see not only if your herd is improving or not, but where the overall heart of your individual horse might be but also the heart of your herd may also be.
When The Sentiment Is Confusion
Okay. So know you have your results. You know basically that you're looking for stronger WPS over weaker WPS.
But, what makes a heart? So far, you've only found horses that can compete for you. Which is GREAT! But... still leaves you a little lackluster and confused for the heart still.
So, now I will explain what a heart in a horse actually looks like, the hard numbers. And, before you ask, since I have already offered this explanation to another, and quite like it, this will be paraphrased off of another that I've already written up. So, feel free to call me a bit lazy about this part of the guide.
Say you have two horses, both with the same HGP (let's say they're same in every way; identical twins and identical training). They're both pitted against one another (in the same competitions) and come up against other top horses. You make sure that they're always competing in levels 7 through 10.
Their record ends up looking like this:
That's pretty obvious which one has better heart in the above scenario. But it's worth taking a closer look to start training the eye. Twin A is incredibly more successful over Twin B.
How about this record, using the same two Twins A & B:
Okay, so still a bit obvious, with Twin A still leading. Still, as you look over the data, a 70% WPS is better than a lot of other competition records, but overall, this isn't all that great. Between the two of them, Twin A does appear to come out on top, with a better version of heart... right?
Not necessarily, but in this case, yes, however, Twin B could still offer the same quality of foals that Twin A may. Why? Because their heart genes are similar enough that they might actually share the same ones. Our lack of understanding of the actual genes that control heart disables our ability to figure out what even these two identical twins might give us.
Now we'll get a bit more difficult:
Which one of our twins look better now? Which one likely has the potential for the better heart? Are you guessing at which one? Are you fairly certain? Which horse would you rather own (for breeding purposes), if you were offered to own just one? This is where we get into personal preference.
In my opinion, though there is a weaker WPS, Twin B has a stronger heart. Even in our theory, both of these horses are identical in every way, with the only difference of heart genes and I'd still pick the Twin B to have as a breeder over the first. I certainly wouldn't cull Twin A, because the WPS is stronger and far stronger than most other horses, but I would certainly be much more selective over Twin A's partners too.
Here's another consideration, if you choose to use the Baseline method above, instead. This one will be really straightforward and quite a bit less interpretation.
Take your Baseline scores, cut them in half, so you have about half above and half below. Now match your horse's player hosted competition scores against these baselines.
If the upper half of your baseline scores are mostly or always better than the player hosted scores, then your horse has really awful heart or no heart at all.
If your baseline scores mostly match (both upper and lower) your player hosted scores (without having too many beating the upper half but also without too many losing to the lower half), then your horse likely has a heart right in the middle areas. Successful, but nothing extraordinary.
However, if your horse's player hosted scores beat all of the lower half baselines and match (or even beat) some of the upper half baselines, then your horse likely has much stronger heart genes.
And now for the Baseline and the player hosted positions.
You'll be taking into account the scores themselves. How close are they? Are your baseline scores in the really competitive areas of your chosen discipline? If your horse posted locals that are in that upper tier of your baseline, then when that horse competes in player hosted, you should be expecting it to post fast times (not necessarily the fastest), but he should always be in the top two spots (with little exception).
If your horse posted locals that were more average, then he might be expected to retain his competitiveness in the second to fourth placements in player hosted.
If your horse was rather lazy in locals and falls on the lower end of your baseline, then your horse will be expected to regularly in the 'Out Positions', so anything below third place.
Once you start developing a record, take note of your previous expectations. If a horse pulls better placements than expected, even if the scores are a bit erratic, you may still be dealing with a heart that's better than you think. And the opposite is also true. If the horse pulls places lower than expected, then a lack of heart may be the issue (or a weaker-than-expected heart).
Inspiring The Resolutions
So heart ultimately comes down to [opinion] and how we feel overall the horse performs against [our expectations]. If we expect a horse to have a high WPS and should win most of it's competitions and it has a high WPS but overall ends up usually placing second or third instead, even if much of those are second placements, this would still be less heart then we would want. The horse has a 'weaker' heart, in your opinion. So it'll be up to you where you'll end up placing your heart bars, what type of average is your average and where your herds' baseline performance should be.
Heart isn't everything, but it can be the difference between a win and a loss.
Conformation scores give us insight into our horses and what they may be able to compete in, but not necessarily what they'll great at it. They help to define what we should expect from that horse in competitions and not necessarily what we will expect. So, for instance, a 65 speed horse should be expected to be seriously competitive; understanding this, it helps us define that when such a horse fails miserably against horses that... say for instance, have 45, 49 and 52 speeds, we know and understand that it's not a failure in the 65 speed that the horse faces, but a failure elsewhere.
HGP and Breeder's Report do the same things for us.
But even with all three of these things wrapped into one, we will still get horses that can't do a danged HAY of a thing.
So, does it come down to heart?
The on-paper stats of a horse has become a guide for us to help define 'where we went wrong' and is simply not a 'say-all, end-all' for what should be achieved, at least in the instance of a horse that's proving a failure. Heart, therefore, has become the boost that makes an out-powered horse into a competitive horse, an average horse into a success and a good-looking horse into a power-horse.
As for breeding for it, I do have some extra advice on this, as well. Overall, any horse with a lower-than-average heart, you should consider overall not right for your breeding and either extensively limit breeding matches or entirely cull it from the breeding barn. Such a horse could still have a career as a competition horse or as a grinder, but most likely is lacking the heart genes to produce the foals that will make your bloodline a competitive success.
Alternately, any horses with an average or better heart, should be included in your breeding rotation to help spread those better genes throughout (especially if you have newly introduced stock, unknown stock, or have a favorite horse that's just lacking in heart).
But remember, even if you've found just the perfect heart paired with the perfect competition horse, one with the best scores and almost never fails to perform, you should still keep an extensively close eye on those foals. HGP can be a real killer (and quickly) in ruining an established heart-proven bloodline.
It's still very easy to breed-out those important heart genes. If you're not paying attention, even if you're consistently inbreeding with no outside lines or AC lines at all (since we don't know exactly the build of these heart genes) you could accidentally lose your precious heart. Whomp! And you realize your herd is practically useless because they're all losing.
As another interesting note. The heart of a horse can also reveal what type of breeder it can be. It's not always accurate, but for the most part, horses with better heart will more often produce foals of better quality, meanwhile, horses with weaker hearts will more often produce foals of poorer quality. The exception is the intermittent heart where they generally end up producing much like they run, a couple really great ones, a couple really awful ones and a handful that ends up right in the middling range.
*******
Alright. This took ... too long... to type up. But it's done now!
I did reread many parts of it, but I just don't have the courage to read through it again. So if anybody finds anything weird, confusing, not reading right or smooth, please let me know, I'll go back and fix it.
Thanks goes out generally for everybody that I've ever hashed out Heart genes (and other possibly hidden genes) with and specifically for those quoted for letting me utilize them again. I certainly couldn't have come to a lot of these conclusions if it weren't for the community's ideas, thoughts, questions, suggestions and hard (and sometimes a bit weird) theories.
I'm out!
All About Heart
Forward
Even though we, as a community, are fairly certain this Heart Gene exists, there are a number of us that suspect there may be other hidden competition genes still. Although this topic is entitled The Hidden Competition Genes: All About Heart, I will be including any information I find and know (or suspect) about any of these hidden genes. This topic will just be mostly on the one gene that the community is 'fairly certain' that it already exists.
And, before I get into it, to be clear, this isn't just my information that I've collected through the years. This is a guide written by combining many senior, junior and even newbie (at the time) questions, answers and experiences. So, I can only take the credit of finally pulling all of this into one place.
For ease of use (and to ensure the horses are memorialized, instead of rehomed), I will be almost wholly using example horses that I own or that have already passed away.
Brief History
I know, personally, I had come up across horses that should do well, but for some reason, just do not. I know I've spoken to many other players (some seniors of mine) throughout my gameplay. Unless my memory fails me, I think the most constructive early conversation was with a player named Veterinarian. In speaking, at some... LONG length, I began to hash out exactly what the hidden gene might be, what it might do and how it might be coded into the game. But, this isn't the only long conversation I've had with senior members, trying to understand it, both trying to explain it to others and trying to glean more information for myself.
There was another time I had an extended conversation, back in 2020, to multiple Record Holder producer Jockey'sHolding. This senior member produced (among others) these following Record Holders in Harness Racing:
NSA Pretty Cool
NSA Burnished
NSA Warrior Impressions
NSA Excitable
NSA A Warrior's Hush
NSA Expectation
Why do I mention these? Because without taking into consideration this hidden Heart Gene (as well as possible other hidden competition genes), your chance of creating Record Holders gets a little harder and a little longer.
And these two senior members I named are very far from the only ones that have produced Record Holders and also very far from the only one's I've ever spoken to about these hidden genes. I name these two in particular, because the long conversation I had with each of them about the Heart Gene in particular, really stuck to me and helped me (more the former, then the later) develop the understanding I have of this Heart Gene, as we understand it today.
Are these the only ones? HAY! No! Absolutely not! are they the only ones that contributed to my understanding, or to the community's understanding. They were the ones that influenced my understanding to deeper levels at the time I spoke to them. There were plenty others afterward and even a few before as well.
Anyway, onward to the guide.
To The Heart Of The Horse
This will, indeed, be the longest section. So get comfortable.
What is the heart gene exactly?
To keep it plain and straightforward, the heart gene is the 'will to win'.
But there are many forms of the 'will to win' and frustratingly so. To ensure that our horses aren't just the usual on/off, win/lose of every other game out there, our gracious (if sometimes aggravating, but all in a good way) admins have written into the game quite a few hidden genes that ensure that the best-looking horses (top HGP, top BR, top conformation scores) are not necessarily the best at every discipline here. Okay, maybe 'quite a few hidden genes' is taking too much liberty. I don't know if there are 'quite a few', there may only be one or two actually 'hidden' that they'll never really confirm or deny. Suffice to say, the heart gene is indeed one that we, the community are fairly certain exists.
And recently, there appears to be other hidden competition aspects that some of us are beginning to suspect.
[quote]Horses may also have preference for one discipline above another, beyond what their stats and conformation say they should excel at. This is also something that can only be tested for through competitions.
Experimentation and observation. - Silverine[/quote]
What are these other ones? Well, we suspect they are directly related to the disciplines themselves. So although we don't know what they are, we suspect they may be 'per discipline'. So there might be one that's coded for an affinity for sprint racing and one that's coded for an affinity for log pulling and so on. Is there a coding for an affinity for each discipline? I don't know. What could it mean? I suspect... if it exists... that it's simply an on/off style that makes them just a little more apt to do just a little better for just a little more often. What would the difference actually result in? Well, in my mind, if (not considering heart) your horse would usually pull [in five starts] one first, two seconds and two thirds, the affinity for that discipline may be more like one first, three seconds and one third. But in reality, I think it's more attributable to the score itself. Something perhaps like a 5% betterment in their overall score. Probably much less, maybe something like a 1% betterment. So to not lend any actual 'super-horse' ability, but enough to perform better against a horse with better heart.
But... the question of whether these affinity genes exist, is the real inquiry.
So I'll leave it there. I don't know. There does seem to be a difference of some horses, even accounting for heart genes. Maybe there are affinity genes as well. Without further in-depth study (I'm not sure how to attack such a thing), we may not be able to answer this question.
In order to win in competitions, all that a horse really needs (at first) is raw talent. These are indicated by the BR, the HGP and the conformation score. Basically. Any horse can win low levels with just these. But without heart, a horse can't go up against other horses that have heart and still expect to win. In these grayer areas, a horse that has a vast different in raw talent, can still lose, and fairly sorely, against horses that appear to be quite obviously their inferiors.
Take, for instance, these two horses.
There can be horses that are specialized in a single discipline, like this brilliant stallion who pulled a world record in poles:
Cobalt Basilisk
He has five disciplines (all very closely related) that he's maintained a WPS above 70%, but only three of these have about half of this count, as first placements.
Alternately, his full brother:
Snow Babe
Who did not earn any world records, but has a remarkably similar body form and with only slightly different overall stats, has maintained six disciplines over 70% WPS, but only two have nearly half firsts.
This full brother, I consider a specialized generalist.
The differences between these two certainly don't stop there. My record holder, Cobalt Basilisk maintained just two disciplines at or above level 7 in player-hosted competitions, Saddleseat at level 7 and Poles at level 9. But Snow Babe maintained four at or above level 7. Racing, Sprint and Harness were all level 7 with a level 8 in steeplechase.
So what's the real differences?
My line that I'm showing you here (along with their ancestors and descendants and cousins) have all been fully tested to check for heart, generalist abilities and in a couple cases, specialist breeding (these two were specialist breeding, specifically from their dame and outbred to a top-competing sire in appropriate disciplines). But if I had to put these two up against each other, I'd put my money on Snow Babe to beat his brother nine out of ten times in everything, including poles. If based on poles only, my odds would still be in the seven out of ten times area for Snow Babe to still win.
Why? Because Snow Babe's overall raw talent may not be as strong as his brother, but his heart has taken him further and in more disciplines. Take a look at their raw talent broken down by stats:
| Cobalt Basilisk | Snow Babe | |
| HGP | 64,468 | 63,564 |
| BR | ||
| Strength | I cannot be certain, but it seems he'll grow into a strong stallion. | About average strength, nothing exciting. |
| Speed | This stallion is faster than lightning! | Congratulations, this fella has amazing natural speed. |
| Stamina | This stallion's endurance is higher than average. | This stallion has plenty of vitality and, in turn, plenty of stamina. |
| Movement | This stallion is very average, even in the way he moves. | I've seen perfect movement and I've seen just plain awful movement. |
| Tempo | This stallion is very steady. | Your stallion keeps time well. |
| Balance | This is one balanced horse! | This beauty has a decent amount of balance. |
| Agility | Your stallion is very nimble. | This stallion is sprightly, you should be proud! |
| Intelligence | This stallion is pretty bright. | I've examined quite a few horses in my day and this one is definitely one of the smartest I've met! |
| BR Hard Scores | 502.4 | 453.5 |
| Confo Scores | ||
| Speed | 55 | 60 |
| Strength | 21 | 20 |
| Stamina | 30 | 34 |
| Balance | 38 | 26 |
| Movement | 37 | 25 |
| Agility | 32 | 27 |
| Tempo | 21 | 23 |
| Total Confo Points | 234 | 215 |
I purposefully copied the layout of the BR and the conformation scores to mimic the way we've become accustomed to read them. And also purposefully left off Intelligence from the scores. For those that suffer from color blindness and you find the table is difficult or impossible to read, please let me know what I might be able to change to help that.
Even though there appears to be a lot of difference between these two horses, there isn't as much as one may think. It does add up, though. So why do I put my money on Snow Babe, instead of my Record Holder? Because Snow Babe has a little more uniformity in his performance.
Well, maybe I'm wrong and maybe these two brothers were a bad example. They're solid and similar but with fairly different outcomes in disciplines and records. So, at this juncture, whether I've succeeded or not, I'll leave it open to further debate if debate feels appropriate.
As I've said before, Heart is best described as 'the will to win'. But what exactly does this mean? Okay, I'll explain this multiple different ways throughout here, because I know just one definition doesn't always cover everybody's understanding. So... say... you have a horse, you have it trained (either for a discipline or fully) and you've been using this horse in the locals. And this horse has been always pulling first, in level 10 of ... whatever discipline you chose. And you start getting a little curious and you look at the world record times and suddenly you're like:
Oh! My! THIS horse is matching (or beating) some of these current world record times! WOW! So... you decide to start entering this horse into player hosted competitions. And suddenly, your horse is pulling thirds and fourths and just having his proverbial butt handed to him. You take a closer look and realize he's not pulling anywhere near the times you saw in his locals.And you're rather heartbroken. Yeah... this is the lack of heart. And... all of us have been here at some point.
But... exactly what is heart? It's the difference between a first and a second, or a second and a third. It's the competition record reading 50 starts, 30 firsts, 15 seconds and 5 thirds rather than 50 starts, 20 firsts, 10 seconds, 20 thirds. It's that catching of the eye of the judges in the good way, rather than the bad way. Or the horse that performs under you perfectly, regardless of the hissy-fit it had in the warm-up ring. It's the fire in the eye as the horse sizes up it's competition.
And on this game? It helps to create an avenue to allow a different course to the winner's circle. Insofar as breeding the best HGP to the best HGP just isn't enough. It makes using strategy and understanding 'what makes a winner' the important course of action instead of mindless breeding for the top stats.
And it answers the question: How do we separate our game from the others, whereas the top horses always have the top stats and nothing more?
So. Heart has little use in locals (there's some suggestion that it can enable a horse to earn more firsts, but doesn't appear to do much else and cannot appear to be used to determine heart ability). Heart isn't used in any other aspect of this game, except for in player hosted competitions (that we're aware of). And we don't necessarily need heart for our competition horses to compete successfully in those player hosted competitions. However, having it (especially as the horse competes in higher levels), becomes exceedingly important and useful.
So by planning to find a horse on the market that has proven heart (or is a proven producer of heart), or by working on heart at the beginning of your breeding project, you will be ensuring you're setting yourself up for success.
But, of course, it's not that easy. It's never that easy. Let's get into it further, by getting into what we've come to theorize about the genes themselves.
The Spirit Behind The Genes
Okay, so we don't know the genes that work this. To keep things a bit straightforward and simple, for this topic (from here onward) I'll be using h to indicate heart and n to indicate the absence of, or the smallest form of. I, also, don't know if it's dominant or recessive either.
We only have theory on this gene.
And that there appears to be much more to this than a simple on/off switch. As in, a horse either has it or it does not.
We understand enough to say that our competition horses don't fall into just the two categories of 'heart = always winning' and 'no heart = always losing'. So because of this, we've theorized that there is at least an incomplete gene at work, so like: 'two heart = always winning' (h/h), 'one heart = sometimes winning' (h/n) and 'no heart = always losing' (n/n).
Well, I'm a bit liberal with the 'always winning' and 'always losing' parts. I'm not saying that heart always equals winning. So if you're confused about that, did you read the part above this one? If you did and you're still confused, please let me know what and where, and I'll add to it to try to clear up the confusion.
In my opinion, (after having working with a long line of all-competition-tested horses) I have come to the conclusion that there are at least five variations of the heart gene. But I haven't yet figured out how they work together.
These five that I appear to have been able to pin down, go from weakest to strongest: No Heart, Weak Heart (Okay Heart), Average Heart, Strong Heart, Exceptional Heart, Intermittent Heart.
You count six, right?
That's because I actually consider the (n/n) as the absence of the heart gene. So, five variations with the option to not have any heart at all. This is because when I worked with breeding these absent-of-heart horses, I had no luck at all to develop heart in the line, unless I bred out to a horse with the gene.
However, perhaps it was just my luck.
[quote]As far as I can tell, all horses have at least a baseline level of heart. If you're starting out with non-competitive horses it will take longer, but by only breeding together the horses who perform best (compared to others in your program) you can increase how much heart your stock has. - Aubergine[/quote]
I'm a breeder, not a competitor. So even though I take into account the heart gene, with the exception of my personal competition line and the Lp Tb club lines, I don't test and breed for competition heart until much later (my other projects are not ripe enough to start working on the competition heart).
So, what defines these five... er... six variations of yours?
No Heart
This appears to be fairly obvious. But it's a bit further than just not existing. When I say that a competition horse has 'no heart', I mean that the horse doesn't ever perform in player hosted competitions at all. It's not that they're running on raw talent, it's more like their 'on-paper' belongs to an entirely different horse. It's like their lack of heart actually hurts their baseline, instead of not helping them at all.
I'd like to offer a horse like this, but I don't own one that's been thoroughly tested to show the depth and width of how these horse's fail. Suffice to say, their raw talent (on-paper) suggests that the horse can compete relatively well, but when they do, it's more like they're running backwards on the track, running through the jumps on the course or finding the water in the trail course a much better place to roll in, then to pay attention to the trail at all. They simply Do Not perform in any manner or in any discipline.
I have seen a handful of these horses; they are disappointing, to say the least. Luckily, they don't really seem to be the norm.
Weak Heart (Okay Heart)
These horses appear to be what most of the competition trials on HWO are made of. We try them a number of times, they don't really go anywhere... maybe they hold their own, but when looking over their raw talent (on-paper), you get the distinct feeling that they really should be doing better than they are.
'For whatever reason, this horse just isn't really performing.'
Such horses regularly get beaten by rivals, especially those you think they should at least keep up with, but aren't necessarily at the back of the pack. They're just middling. Not bad, really not good, but not exactly failing either. I've also called these, on occasion, as Okay Hearts. I've done this from time to time to remind myself that 'some heart is better than nothing'. And even these horses can have some sparks of brilliance in their career, but it's mostly just lucky breaks.
There are times I want to pull these two apart, because I think there might be a difference between these two. One sometimes does appear to have a difference between the other. But overall, this one, the Weak Heart, the nickname I sometimes use, Okay Heart and the next level, the Average Heart, if I were to separate these as three, instead of two, I would find these horses as a sliding scale instead of separate types.Average Heart
Now, when seeing the raw talent of a horse, looking over all of their 'on-paper' stats, these horses perform as you expect a horse to perform. They pull their placements and achieve their scores right where you expect them to land. They are no better than what your information suggests, but they're also no worse.
It would really be nice if most of the horses in our competitions have this average style heart, sadly, we still have a fairly significant rift between competition horses with heart and those with... less heart. So overall, our competition horses with average heart are still a bit uncommon when you move outside of specifically bred competition bloodlines.
However. There are a lot of simply unknown horses out there. Many, many horses that have never hit any discipline at all. So there may be quite a few more of these types waiting to be discovered.
Strong Heart
These are a bit more fun.
When you look over these horses stats, you figure something along the lines of: 'Well, he should be able to do something. I wonder if he'll be able to keep up?' And they do. Not only do they keep up, they beat out horses that you figure would best them. And they keep doing it.
They surprise you again and again and you're like: 'Yes! Finally got one that can compete with the big boys!'
These horses most often get beat out by a particular type of competitor; those with the same heart, better heart AND with better stats. It's a bit uncommon, even maybe rare that they'll falter to other horses you look at and decide they're superior to.
Exceptional Heart
...YEAH... Oh! Yeah!
It's interesting and So Fun! To have these horses. The best ones often look a tad mediocre too. The type that you're like: 'Well... I'll give him a go. See what he does.' And BAM! It's like the horse can't lose!
Yeah, they do, from time to time, but it's rare and appears to be for the weirdest things.
Intermittent Heart
Well. These horses aren't my favorite types. They win a bunch, then lose a bunch. Like they have great days where they're: 'I'm eating my competition for breakfast!' and then they'll have truly awful days that they're instead like: 'Eh. You want me to do what now? I'm not feeling it. Go away.' And follow it up with a rear barrel shot.
And their score swing is generally far wider than other horses. Their weakest low scores and their strongest high scores are lower and higher than other competitors.
But they still do have a place as this 'best' heart. As of the writing of this guide, most of our record holders have this style of heart.
Why is this? Likely because these horses were bred to first and most often and because of their record holder statuses, in effect spreading their genes around the site and encouraging more of these types of hearts to run rampant.
So... is that all 'we' know about the heart gene? Not quite. You see, we're still not sure whether this is a static style gene or a buildable style gene.
What's the difference? Well, a static style gene is one that's either there or it is not. For instance, your horse is either red, or it is not. It is black, or it is not. Even though I said there are multiple variations of the heart gene and a horse can theoretically have different hearts (and the hearts genes they may work in conjunction with each other), having a static style heart gene means that there is a limited amount of 'heart' that any horse can ever achieve and that this limited heart will always fall into a limited number of styles. Any horse will only ever have ONE of these types of hearts and potentially TWO that it can ever pass onto any offspring. Well... that's assuming that there's just a single gene with two alleles controlling it.
The buildable style is one that works more like the Tobiano gene and the Leopard Complex gene. The more you breed it in, the more the heart gene builds up. In this case, though the horse can fall into one of the aforementioned types, there can be a stronger or weaker version in each of these types. Just like with weight, where there are multiple pounds in the moderate area before the horse switches to either moderately fat or moderately thin.
I haven't seen too much evidence to suggest that there is a buildable heart gene, but I haven't found enough evidence to say that it's not either. I have only found enough evidence to suggest that there are certain and specifically different styles of heart.
Also now. About the interaction between them. Here's a quick run-through of the limited knowledge I've come to a shaky theory on.
Intermittent Hearts appear to prefer to throw more intermittent offspring... and at an intermittent rate!
Once it's in your herd, it appears to be quite difficult to breed out. They'll also throw weak and even a rare, no-heart foal on a fairly regular basis. They're just all over the place in practically every area. But perhaps that's too much of my own bias coming through.Exceptional Hearts appear to favor throwing strong hearted and average hearted offspring, regardless of the other parent, but can be born from average hearted parents.
Sometimes average hearted and weak hearted parents will through an intermittent heart foal, but it (at least in my experience) appears to be quite rare.
And finally, horses with at least average heart and better do appear to throw more of the better quality foals than those with weak or low hearts and sometimes almost despite their partner.
How To Find The Passion
Everybody has their own ways to go about testing and trialing their stock. To date, however, there appears to be only one surefire way to test for this elusive and theorized Heart Gene (and perhaps also any other hidden talent genes that may or may not exist). And that singular way is to stuff them into player hosted competitions and develop a competition record.
Without competing against other horses, a horse's competitiveness will remain unknown.
So in this section, I will outline my own two procedures that have worked for me. Other people may have different versions and they're welcome to post their preferred methods below. If added, I'll include them into this section (copy & paste method), so please ensure they're fairly well worded (I can correct minimal grammar and spelling, if needed).
Feel free to adopt any of the following procedures and make it your own.
However, before I get into the methods themselves, I want to touch on some other related subjects.
Back Theory.
- A horse in locals can show the absolute best and worst scores that he can produce.
- Without other competition, the heart of the horse is unknown.
- Player hosted competitions offer scores that will be different from local scores. Depending on the competition and also the heart of the other horses, these player hosted competition scores can be very close to the local scores your horse offered or very far apart.
- A horse can have a single really great score in a player hosted competition, if the competition lacks heart, if the competition is of poorer quality, or both. This can be considered an artificial boost and must be looked out for.
- If good placements (not necessarily good or strong scores) are repeated, then there may need to be additional investigation or additional entries made, to see if the horse really has heart, or if the horse just had a number of 'lucky breaks' against weaker or inferior stock.
- Even a poorly-scoring horse can show strong heart. In such a case, one must then consider if the poor scores are because of weak genes (such as a confo score in the 40's, while the competition has scores in the 50's) or the HGP happens to be a bit lower than the competition (for instance, your horse has his in the high 50's, but the competition at times are touching or well into the 60's).
- In the end, even the weakest scoring horse can pull in enough WPS [if tested correctly] to read appropriately for heart genes.
- Even a really poor 'on-paper' horse can have an explosive competition career.
A horse doesn't need to be fully (or even partially) trained to utilize any of these following methods (unless otherwise stated). If testing a horse in player hosted competitions without training, one needs to keep in mind the following points.
- An untrained horse can look like he's an intermittent style heart. This just means they're 'all over the place', simply entirely untrained, which they are. This is just the must-accept-it fact.
- If working with an untrained horse, use only the lower levels. You will be entering your horse against fully trained, so don't give your horse an additional disadvantage. By entering your untrained horse in higher levels, you will be setting your horse up to fail and you'll never be able to make any sense of the fact that your horse is posting the worst scores and the worst placements. In lower levels, even an untrained horse with raw talent could show some usable data and usually will.
- Your horse, when the records start to come in, WILL have a very sloppy return. Your horse IS going to fail, he's untrained, after all. But there's a difference between a horse that's failing miserably (likely weaker-style hearts) and a horse that's only 'just' failing (likely stronger-style hearts).
- And lastly, I don't recommend anybody trying the untrained method until you understand your bloodline and understand the disciplines you'll be working in. You don't want to go into this untrained method blind, it won't do you any favors and will be hard enough for you to interpret even with some experience.
Even with the following methods, you will want to keep an eye on the competition. Sometimes a horse will just be pitted against just the wrong rival and just the wrong times. So either make sure your competition is alternating (not the same two or three horses), or actually look at the other horses in those competitions after it runs to make sure you're not getting some false readings.
Option One: The Straightforward & Short Method
Take your (assuming trained, if untrained, see the list above and alter accordingly) horse and enter him into just four level 10 of the desired disciplines.
Wait for them to run.
Any discipline that has a 75% win rate (this is 3 placements that fall into first, second or third places), enter these disciplines again.
This time, you will want to enter 16 additional competitions from level 7 to level 10 (try to get a good mix). A few level 6 competitions is acceptable but attempt to not mix them with your one or two level 5 entries, if you need them.
In this way, you're looking for your total of 20 recorded competitions.
When all 20 are run, any discipline that has at least a 70% WPS (win, place, show, that's first, second and third), your horse may be revealing a heart. Your horse certainly appears to have a talent for that discipline!
Have fun.
Option Two: Baseline
This method is a little longer, but perhaps a little more methodical.
First, you will need some baseline data.
Run a number of your foals in locals, level 10 of your preferred discipline.
Take note of only their times (NOT their placements). Take a strong sampling from a number of your randomly-picked foals. Try to hit in the 50-sampling range. Maybe 10 locals from one, 15 from another, 10 from another, etc.
The aim is to acquire a sampling of your herd and not a sampling of just one or two horses. Now take the top couple scores and the bottom couple scores and discard them. You're looking right now for a baseline and not 'the best or the worst'. There will always be a small number of quirky results. It's not because the data is bad, it's because there could be a variable affecting them that we don't understand and it can skew the data in a way that's not entirely fair overall.
This becomes your 'herd baseline'. When using this herd baseline, it should give you some data on your heart gene capability of any individual horse, produced from your herd.
Now, each individual horse you will first gain a small sampling of in locals and you will compare it to your herd baseline.
Then, as you enter your horses in player hosted competitions, take note of not just their scores but also their placements. The times run in the player hosted competitions will also be affected by the other horses and what results they posted. Some competitors will encourage your horse to do better, while others will discourage your horse and he'll do worse.
And with both the sampling of your horse in locals, the record you acquired in player hosted and by comparing these two against your herd baseline, you should be able to see not only if your herd is improving or not, but where the overall heart of your individual horse might be but also the heart of your herd may also be.
When The Sentiment Is Confusion
Okay. So know you have your results. You know basically that you're looking for stronger WPS over weaker WPS.
But, what makes a heart? So far, you've only found horses that can compete for you. Which is GREAT! But... still leaves you a little lackluster and confused for the heart still.
So, now I will explain what a heart in a horse actually looks like, the hard numbers. And, before you ask, since I have already offered this explanation to another, and quite like it, this will be paraphrased off of another that I've already written up.
So, feel free to call me a bit lazy about this part of the guide.Say you have two horses, both with the same HGP (let's say they're same in every way; identical twins and identical training). They're both pitted against one another (in the same competitions) and come up against other top horses. You make sure that they're always competing in levels 7 through 10.
Their record ends up looking like this:
| Twin A | Twin B | |
| WPS | 90% | 70% |
| Starts | 100 | 100 |
| Wins | 60 | 20 |
| Seconds | 20 | 40 |
| Thirds | 10 | 10 |
| Outs | 10 | 30 |
How about this record, using the same two Twins A & B:
| Twin A | Twin B | |
| WPS | 70% | 70% |
| Starts | 100 | 100 |
| Wins | 40 | 20 |
| Seconds | 10 | 30 |
| Thirds | 20 | 20 |
| Outs | 30 | 30 |
Not necessarily, but in this case, yes, however, Twin B could still offer the same quality of foals that Twin A may. Why? Because their heart genes are similar enough that they might actually share the same ones. Our lack of understanding of the actual genes that control heart disables our ability to figure out what even these two identical twins might give us.
Now we'll get a bit more difficult:
| Twin A | Twin B | |
| WPS | 90% | 80% |
| Starts | 100 | 100 |
| Wins | 10 | 40 |
| Seconds | 20 | 30 |
| Thirds | 60 | 10 |
| Outs | 10 | 20 |
In my opinion, though there is a weaker WPS, Twin B has a stronger heart. Even in our theory, both of these horses are identical in every way, with the only difference of heart genes and I'd still pick the Twin B to have as a breeder over the first. I certainly wouldn't cull Twin A, because the WPS is stronger and far stronger than most other horses, but I would certainly be much more selective over Twin A's partners too.
Here's another consideration, if you choose to use the Baseline method above, instead. This one will be really straightforward and quite a bit less interpretation.
Take your Baseline scores, cut them in half, so you have about half above and half below. Now match your horse's player hosted competition scores against these baselines.
If the upper half of your baseline scores are mostly or always better than the player hosted scores, then your horse has really awful heart or no heart at all.
If your baseline scores mostly match (both upper and lower) your player hosted scores (without having too many beating the upper half but also without too many losing to the lower half), then your horse likely has a heart right in the middle areas. Successful, but nothing extraordinary.
However, if your horse's player hosted scores beat all of the lower half baselines and match (or even beat) some of the upper half baselines, then your horse likely has much stronger heart genes.
And now for the Baseline and the player hosted positions.
You'll be taking into account the scores themselves. How close are they? Are your baseline scores in the really competitive areas of your chosen discipline? If your horse posted locals that are in that upper tier of your baseline, then when that horse competes in player hosted, you should be expecting it to post fast times (not necessarily the fastest), but he should always be in the top two spots (with little exception).
If your horse posted locals that were more average, then he might be expected to retain his competitiveness in the second to fourth placements in player hosted.
If your horse was rather lazy in locals and falls on the lower end of your baseline, then your horse will be expected to regularly in the 'Out Positions', so anything below third place.
Once you start developing a record, take note of your previous expectations. If a horse pulls better placements than expected, even if the scores are a bit erratic, you may still be dealing with a heart that's better than you think. And the opposite is also true. If the horse pulls places lower than expected, then a lack of heart may be the issue (or a weaker-than-expected heart).
Inspiring The Resolutions
So heart ultimately comes down to [opinion] and how we feel overall the horse performs against [our expectations]. If we expect a horse to have a high WPS and should win most of it's competitions and it has a high WPS but overall ends up usually placing second or third instead, even if much of those are second placements, this would still be less heart then we would want. The horse has a 'weaker' heart, in your opinion. So it'll be up to you where you'll end up placing your heart bars, what type of average is your average and where your herds' baseline performance should be.
Heart isn't everything, but it can be the difference between a win and a loss.
Conformation scores give us insight into our horses and what they may be able to compete in, but not necessarily what they'll great at it. They help to define what we should expect from that horse in competitions and not necessarily what we will expect. So, for instance, a 65 speed horse should be expected to be seriously competitive; understanding this, it helps us define that when such a horse fails miserably against horses that... say for instance, have 45, 49 and 52 speeds, we know and understand that it's not a failure in the 65 speed that the horse faces, but a failure elsewhere.
HGP and Breeder's Report do the same things for us.
But even with all three of these things wrapped into one, we will still get horses that can't do a danged HAY of a thing.
So, does it come down to heart?
The on-paper stats of a horse has become a guide for us to help define 'where we went wrong' and is simply not a 'say-all, end-all' for what should be achieved, at least in the instance of a horse that's proving a failure. Heart, therefore, has become the boost that makes an out-powered horse into a competitive horse, an average horse into a success and a good-looking horse into a power-horse.
As for breeding for it, I do have some extra advice on this, as well. Overall, any horse with a lower-than-average heart, you should consider overall not right for your breeding and either extensively limit breeding matches or entirely cull it from the breeding barn. Such a horse could still have a career as a competition horse or as a grinder, but most likely is lacking the heart genes to produce the foals that will make your bloodline a competitive success.
Alternately, any horses with an average or better heart, should be included in your breeding rotation to help spread those better genes throughout (especially if you have newly introduced stock, unknown stock, or have a favorite horse that's just lacking in heart).
But remember, even if you've found just the perfect heart paired with the perfect competition horse, one with the best scores and almost never fails to perform, you should still keep an extensively close eye on those foals. HGP can be a real killer (and quickly) in ruining an established heart-proven bloodline.
It's still very easy to breed-out those important heart genes. If you're not paying attention, even if you're consistently inbreeding with no outside lines or AC lines at all (since we don't know exactly the build of these heart genes) you could accidentally lose your precious heart. Whomp! And you realize your herd is practically useless because they're all losing.
As another interesting note. The heart of a horse can also reveal what type of breeder it can be. It's not always accurate, but for the most part, horses with better heart will more often produce foals of better quality, meanwhile, horses with weaker hearts will more often produce foals of poorer quality. The exception is the intermittent heart where they generally end up producing much like they run, a couple really great ones, a couple really awful ones and a handful that ends up right in the middling range.
*******
Alright. This took ... too long... to type up. But it's done now!
I did reread many parts of it, but I just don't have the courage to read through it again.
So if anybody finds anything weird, confusing, not reading right or smooth, please let me know, I'll go back and fix it.Thanks goes out generally for everybody that I've ever hashed out Heart genes (and other possibly hidden genes) with and specifically for those quoted for letting me utilize them again.
I certainly couldn't have come to a lot of these conclusions if it weren't for the community's ideas, thoughts, questions, suggestions and hard (and sometimes a bit weird) theories.I'm out!
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Cypress Creek Elites
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Re: The Hidden Competition Genes: All About Heart
This was fascinating to read up on! I have a horse in my freezer who I think displays a significant amount of heart, but I'll have to take a look at him again.
So what we really need is code that can find the IQR of scores/placings (interquartile range; basically the middle half of a data set) to evaluate horses for heart.
One thing I did briefly with my Karabairs (and may do with my Shetlands once they get a bit more progressed and I can start assessing competitive ability) was make a breed-specific hunters comp for my untrained breeding stock in the 3-4 age range and yeet them all into it. I don't know if that would be a fair evaluation strategy or not (as my stock was pretty inbred and thus, homogenous) but it did give some interesting results, including one mare who pulled thirds very consistently (at the time I think I also entered a few I was training to assess how well they were doing, too).
I'm not sure if I can find her/the comps, but I'll try.
**The competitions are called "Foal Tester 5000" and can be found (very easily) by searching for Karabair Hunter competitions. I ran them quite a few times. Most have some trained champs in the first place spots, but have 6+ untrained horses (sometimes far more).
I discovered that I ended up rehoming the mare who got the third places but I did find this girl:
who seems to perform intermittently- either top of the pack amongst her untrained fellows or really low down.
And then I found the very first few comps I ran.
There are a few horses that actually titled in these, despite every single horse in the competition being completely untrained- and performed consistently at the top. I've pulled a few of the top placers in the first comps I ran, in case anyone wants to analyze.
https://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/3166054
8 starts. Mare. 2 firsts, 2 seconds, 1 third. The other three results were MUCH lower.
https://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/3168074
8 starts. Mare. 1 first and nothing else. She did have two 4th placings, with pretty decent untrained scores, and the rest in the 7-10 range.
https://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/3166264
4 starts. One first, one third, and two 14th placings. He's still alive so you can take a look at his BR and confo (which are pretty similar to other studs I had at the time).
https://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/3166098
6 starts. 1 first, 2 seconds, 2 thirds. The other comp was an 8th placing, but he still had a fairly decent untrained Hunters score. He's probably the single most consistent scorer in the group, with nothing under 40, and in retrospect I probably should have kept him- ah well. Hindsight is 20/20.
So what we really need is code that can find the IQR of scores/placings (interquartile range; basically the middle half of a data set) to evaluate horses for heart.
One thing I did briefly with my Karabairs (and may do with my Shetlands once they get a bit more progressed and I can start assessing competitive ability) was make a breed-specific hunters comp for my untrained breeding stock in the 3-4 age range and yeet them all into it. I don't know if that would be a fair evaluation strategy or not (as my stock was pretty inbred and thus, homogenous) but it did give some interesting results, including one mare who pulled thirds very consistently (at the time I think I also entered a few I was training to assess how well they were doing, too).
I'm not sure if I can find her/the comps, but I'll try.
**The competitions are called "Foal Tester 5000" and can be found (very easily) by searching for Karabair Hunter competitions. I ran them quite a few times. Most have some trained champs in the first place spots, but have 6+ untrained horses (sometimes far more).
I discovered that I ended up rehoming the mare who got the third places but I did find this girl:
who seems to perform intermittently- either top of the pack amongst her untrained fellows or really low down.
And then I found the very first few comps I ran.
There are a few horses that actually titled in these, despite every single horse in the competition being completely untrained- and performed consistently at the top. I've pulled a few of the top placers in the first comps I ran, in case anyone wants to analyze.
https://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/3166054
8 starts. Mare. 2 firsts, 2 seconds, 1 third. The other three results were MUCH lower.
https://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/3168074
8 starts. Mare. 1 first and nothing else. She did have two 4th placings, with pretty decent untrained scores, and the rest in the 7-10 range.
https://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/3166264
4 starts. One first, one third, and two 14th placings. He's still alive so you can take a look at his BR and confo (which are pretty similar to other studs I had at the time).
https://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/3166098
6 starts. 1 first, 2 seconds, 2 thirds. The other comp was an 8th placing, but he still had a fairly decent untrained Hunters score. He's probably the single most consistent scorer in the group, with nothing under 40, and in retrospect I probably should have kept him- ah well. Hindsight is 20/20.
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BlackOak2
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Re: The Hidden Competition Genes: All About Heart
The IQR is one way to help determine a person's own herd and may not evaluate well at all for another's herd. Plus, it can change upward or downward as the HGP and the horses' themselves get better or worse. I didn't add how often one may need to change the baseline data because some herds move faster than others. I have no idea how often is appropriate.Cypress Creek Elites wrote: I discovered that I ended up rehoming the mare who got the third places but I did find this girl:
Hindsight is 20/20.
But for use, the basic methods are sound. Or at least, sound enough to give a person some understanding of what they should be looking for.Yes! After looking at that first mare, she probably would've been an excellent candidate for training and testing to see what she might've been hiding. And she did prove that she must've had something; she foaled a colt that did quite nicely.
In fact, her son posted a time that is quite close to record holders currently: Score: 54.74 and pulled a second in this competition: https://www.horseworldonline.net/compet ... ition=1016
He was keeping pace with a record holder and wasn't exactly failing against him either.
Very nice! And thanks for adding a few extra examples, this will also offer proof for those that want to try an untrained version.
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Aubergine
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Re: The Hidden Competition Genes: All About Heart
That was neat to read! I'll have to read it again later to make sure I didn't miss anything (people are being loud). I've always interpreted the heart not as a single gene (or five) but as a score determined by lots of smaller factors influencing each other. A bit like how height is determined in people I guess, but maybe with fewer variants? Or for an in-game example, how conformation scores are determined. The game devs seem pretty enamored with sliding scales, so personally I'm hesitant to split anything into separate variations.
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BlackOak2
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Re: The Hidden Competition Genes: All About Heart
Yeah, I'm not too sure either way, too. But it seemed to me that there were distinct forms. Of course, I've been wrong before!Aubergine wrote:That was neat to read! I'll have to read it again later to make sure I didn't miss anything (people are being loud). I've always interpreted the heart not as a single gene (or five) but as a score determined by lots of smaller factors influencing each other. A bit like how height is determined in people I guess, but maybe with fewer variants? Or for an in-game example, how conformation scores are determined. The game devs seem pretty enamored with sliding scales, so personally I'm hesitant to split anything into separate variations.
It could certainly be a sliding scale, like 100 points from being 'no heart' at 0 to being outstanding at 100... but then where would such a thing like intermittent fit? I suppose such an intermittent could be a high heart with a missing discipline affinity, or the other way around, a discipline affinity for and a really low heart. It is... a head scratcher. Sometimes I think I'd like it just a tad easier, so that we could figure it out, but by figuring it out, it wouldn't be a mystery.
And... I couldn't get through it anymore! After looking it over and writing it for three days. -_-
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Aubergine
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Re: The Hidden Competition Genes: All About Heart
If it were easier it'd be boring, and we would all have left ages ago. Better to be confused I guess!BlackOak2 wrote:Yeah, I'm not too sure either way, too. But it seemed to me that there were distinct forms. Of course, I've been wrong before!
I suppose such an intermittent could be a high heart with a missing discipline affinity, or the other way around, a discipline affinity for and a really low heart. It is... a head scratcher. Sometimes I think I'd like it just a tad easier, so that we could figure it out, but by figuring it out, it wouldn't be a mystery.
And... I couldn't get through it anymore! After looking it over and writing it for three days. -_-
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Aubergine
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Re: The Hidden Competition Genes: All About Heart
There could even be a 'dumb luck' aspect of it as well. In real competition you can't control that plastic bag blowing around or that a hormonal mare is flirting with your horse from across the arena. An intermittent heart could be linked to higher temperament levels - when faced with these random distractions they either excel or they crash and burn.Aubergine wrote:If it were easier it'd be boring, and we would all have left ages ago. Better to be confused I guess!BlackOak2 wrote:Yeah, I'm not too sure either way, too. But it seemed to me that there were distinct forms. Of course, I've been wrong before!
I suppose such an intermittent could be a high heart with a missing discipline affinity, or the other way around, a discipline affinity for and a really low heart. It is... a head scratcher. Sometimes I think I'd like it just a tad easier, so that we could figure it out, but by figuring it out, it wouldn't be a mystery.
And... I couldn't get through it anymore! After looking it over and writing it for three days. -_-
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BlackOak2
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Re: The Hidden Competition Genes: All About Heart
That certainly could be coded in. Although, I would've suspected that would be an addition when we get our competition overhaul and not actually active currently.Aubergine wrote:There could even be a 'dumb luck' aspect of it as well. In real competition you can't control that plastic bag blowing around or that a hormonal mare is flirting with your horse from across the arena. An intermittent heart could be linked to higher temperament levels - when faced with these random distractions they either excel or they crash and burn.Aubergine wrote:
If it were easier it'd be boring, and we would all have left ages ago. Better to be confused I guess!
But that's an excellent theory.
I kind of really like the thought of having 'hormonal changes' affect competitions... but that's getting into another hot topic (regarding geldings & sterilized mares and gelding competition incentives).
Intermittent's always threw me for a loop. And kind if irritated me. They'd do so well, break a few records and then score horribly like they were looking at their feet. -_- Luckily, my breeding projects aren't plagued by them.
Yet! anyway! Last bumped by BlackOak2 on Wed Jun 07, 2023 12:34 am.
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