The Heart

[Sea Fire]

Alright everyone I need some serious help here.

I am breeding Racing TBs (very original I know ) but even though I have some of the highest stats they don’t have any heart I do plan to breed to a couple of softballs in the near future but I first need a better concept

The heart is the will to win I understand that but…
How do we know? Besides champing at random
How do we breed that? What’s the best way to do so?
Is the heart really all that matter? Is it linked to the temp?
Why don’t we have a discussion about it somewhere that goes into depth? Are there any well priced hearty studs out there?

[Silverine]

Temperament and heart are separate things but both affect how well a horse places. Certain temperaments work better in some disciplines. A racehorse, for example, should have a high strung temperament. A dressage horse does better with a calm temperament.

The only way to really know how much heart a horse has is to enter it in player-made competitions. You can't know how well a horse competes if you don't compete it. Local shows don't offer the same insight because there's no actual "competition".

The best way to keep high heart is to breed high heart horses together. You can breed an untested horse to a high heart horse and still get a foal with decent heart but you run the risk of the unknown parent throwing lower values. If neither parent is tested then all bets are off.

If I'm working on a competitive line I train and compete every horse that isn't rehomed. They have to achieve a certain WPS, and a certain number of those wins need to firsts, in order to be kept in the program. In this way I keep the heart strong and make sure my horses are competitive, even if they may not be "perfect" in some areas.

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.

[Sea Fire]

Temperament and heart are separate things but both affect how well a horse places. Certain temperaments work better in some disciplines. A racehorse, for example, should have a high strung temperament. A dressage horse does better with a calm temperament.

The only way to really know how much heart a horse has is to enter it in player-made competitions. You can't know how well a horse competes if you don't compete it. Local shows don't offer the same insight because there's no actual "competition".

The best way to keep high heart is to breed high heart horses together. You can breed an untested horse to a high heart horse and still get a foal with decent heart but you run the risk of the unknown parent throwing lower values. If neither parent is tested then all bets are off.

If I'm working on a competitive line I train and compete every horse that isn't rehomed. They have to achieve a certain WPS, and a certain number of those wins need to firsts, in order to be kept in the program. In this way I keep the heart strong and make sure my horses are competitive, even if they may not be "perfect" in some areas.

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.

Okay but how do you get the heart in the line? Is their a way to do so is their a way to breed a hearty? Or do you just go at random?

[Aubergine]

Okay but how do you get the heart in the line? Is their a way to do so is their a way to breed a hearty? Or do you just go at random?

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.

[Sea Fire]

Okay but how do you get the heart in the line? Is their a way to do so is their a way to breed a hearty? Or do you just go at random?

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.

Are there any public studs with higher than average heart?

[Aubergine]

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.

Are there any public studs with higher than average heart?

For racing? Probably. What I typically do is go through the level 10 competition results and see what horses pop up the most often. You can then ping the owners of those horses and ask to stud to them or to a similar horse. Alternatively, look through the horses for stud page and rule out anything that doesn't have some sort of championship title. Out of those, whomever most suited stats wise to your project, and had the highest win percentage probably has higher heart. I don't breed for that discipline, so I'm not sure off the top of my head which studs are the best at the moment

[Sea Fire]

Are there any public studs with higher than average heart?

For racing? Probably. What I typically do is go through the level 10 competition results and see what horses pop up the most often. You can then ping the owners of those horses and ask to stud to them or to a similar horse. Alternatively, look through the horses for stud page and rule out anything that doesn't have some sort of championship title. Out of those, whomever most suited stats wise to your project, and had the highest win percentage probably has higher heart. I don't breed for that discipline, so I'm not sure off the top of my head which studs are the best at the moment

Wow thanks and I’m special I don’t know why I didn’t think of that but thank you for all the help

[honeybunny]

Temperament and heart are separate things but both affect how well a horse places. Certain temperaments work better in some disciplines. A racehorse, for example, should have a high strung temperament. A dressage horse does better with a calm temperament.

The only way to really know how much heart a horse has is to enter it in player-made competitions. You can't know how well a horse competes if you don't compete it. Local shows don't offer the same insight because there's no actual "competition".

The best way to keep high heart is to breed high heart horses together. You can breed an untested horse to a high heart horse and still get a foal with decent heart but you run the risk of the unknown parent throwing lower values. If neither parent is tested then all bets are off.

If I'm working on a competitive line I train and compete every horse that isn't rehomed. They have to achieve a certain WPS, and a certain number of those wins need to firsts, in order to be kept in the program. In this way I keep the heart strong and make sure my horses are competitive, even if they may not be "perfect" in some areas.

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.

My question is how Silverine knows these things always... I've been playing for a while and I had no clue there was such a thing as "heart" in these horses. That might explain some of my lazy freeloaders...

[Silverine]

Experimentation and observation. For example, I've had horses that would appear to have identical aptitude for an event - same confo, same BR comments, same build, etc - and one falls flat while the other succeeds. When pitted against each other one would always come out on top of the other. When breeding them, the offspring of the one that was a better competitor generally did better than the offspring of the other, even if their aptitude seemed to be lower.

Apart from that, sometimes you just run across a horse with so much heart that it can't be ignored. This horse is a good example. I used him as the foundation for my Saddleseat line. This is the current iteration. And current iteration's son who is still being tested. Only the best performers are kept and allowed to reproduce. I take the time to train each and every one of them and if they don't perform they are rehomed.

In some cases "heart" can be considered as the same thing as affinity for a discipline. This colt is a good example. He very clearly shows better in Saddleseat than in anything else. He has a 100% W% (with slightly greater than 51% being 1sts) in that despite what on the surface appears to be only moderate conformation and BR for that discipline. Then there's his half brother. The brother appears better in the conformation department but doesn't hold a candle to the first horse's high score and his W% is only just above 90%. In fact, the brother seems to much prefer Show Jumping, in which he has a 93% W% with 66% being 1sts. The first colt only has W% of 55% in Show Jumping, though admittedly his conformation for that discipline is considerably less desirable. So the second colt still has heart, but more of it is placed in Show Jumping rather than Saddleseat when compared to his brother.

Sorry, went on a bit of a tangent there.

[honeybunny]

Experimentation and observation. For example, I've had horses that would appear to have identical aptitude for an event - same confo, same BR comments, same build, etc - and one falls flat while the other succeeds. When pitted against each other one would always come out on top of the other. When breeding them, the offspring of the one that was a better competitor generally did better than the offspring of the other, even if their aptitude seemed to be lower.

Apart from that, sometimes you just run across a horse with so much heart that it can't be ignored. This horse is a good example. I used him as the foundation for my Saddleseat line. This is the current iteration. And current iteration's son who is still being tested. Only the best performers are kept and allowed to reproduce. I take the time to train each and every one of them and if they don't perform they are rehomed.

In some cases "heart" can be considered as the same thing as affinity for a discipline. This colt is a good example. He very clearly shows better in Saddleseat than in anything else. He has a 100% W% (with slightly greater than 51% being 1sts) in that despite what on the surface appears to be only moderate conformation and BR for that discipline. Then there's his half brother. The brother appears better in the conformation department but doesn't hold a candle to the first horse's high score and his W% is only just above 90%. In fact, the brother seems to much prefer Show Jumping, in which he has a 93% W% with 66% being 1sts. The first colt only has W% of 55% in Show Jumping, though admittedly his conformation for that discipline is considerably less desirable. So the second colt still has heart, but more of it is placed in Show Jumping rather than Saddleseat when compared to his brother.

Sorry, went on a bit of a tangent there.

I would agree. I have this colt who confused me by doing well in log pull. He just took to it. He was bred for driving but does very nicely in log pull. I always noticed a differance but never realized there might be an affinity for a sport built in.