Which do you value more?

[Raikit]

A horse that is a champion, even with a low win percentage, or a horse that may not be a champion yet but has a high win percentage?

I'm simply curious because I've seen several champion horses for sale with win percentages below 30% and for my part I would not consider that horse "good" at whatever it is competing in. But I'm not usually in the market to buy a horse for competition (I prefer to breed my own) so I was wondering what other people thought.

[Baranduin Brewster]

A horse that is a champion, even with a low win percentage, or a horse that may not be a champion yet but has a high win percentage?

I'm simply curious because I've seen several champion horses for sale with win percentages below 30% and for my part I would not consider that horse "good" at whatever it is competing in. But I'm not usually in the market to buy a horse for competition (I prefer to breed my own) so I was wondering what other people thought.

Personally, I prefer a horse that has at least a 50% W/P/S...however, this depends on the horse, if the horse has been tried in most events...it is highly unlikely (mostly impossible, I'd think) that the horse will win 50% in every discpline. Since many of the 'Champions' I buy are for foundation stock for my own lines, I will take a look at, what the goal is for the resulting offspring and their confo scores/look.

[Raikit]

Personally, I prefer a horse that has at least a 50% W/P/S...however, this depends on the horse, if the horse has been tried in most events...it is highly unlikely (mostly impossible, I'd think) that the horse will win 50% in every discpline. Since many of the 'Champions' I buy are for foundation stock for my own lines, I will take a look at, what the goal is for the resulting offspring and their confo scores/look.

Oh, I agree! The horse doesn't need to be good at everything. It's just that to me I don't find a horse that has "brute-forced" it's way to a championship with a less-than 30% record and that record mainly thirds with one or two seconds all that appealing. But if that was only part of the record and there were other, more promising, disciplines then I would be able to overlook that.

[8arbarossa]

i dont care about these two things.

[Baranduin Brewster]

Personally, I prefer a horse that has at least a 50% W/P/S...however, this depends on the horse, if the horse has been tried in most events...it is highly unlikely (mostly impossible, I'd think) that the horse will win 50% in every discpline. Since many of the 'Champions' I buy are for foundation stock for my own lines, I will take a look at, what the goal is for the resulting offspring and their confo scores/look.

Oh, I agree! The horse doesn't need to be good at everything. It's just that to me I don't find a horse that has "brute-forced" it's way to a championship with a less-than 30% record and that record mainly thirds with one or two seconds all that appealing. But if that was only part of the record and there were other, more promising, disciplines then I would be able to overlook that.

Then to add on to that, a high w/p/s ratio fully trained horses that is up against cannon fodder, is not that appealing either...so I guess it is all up in the air. For me migitating factors (build, weight, height as well as confo, even color) play an important part in the descision.

[Raikit]

Then to add on to that, a high w/p/s ratio fully trained horses that is up against cannon fodder, is not that appealing either...so I guess it is all up in the air. For me migitating factors (build, weight, height as well as confo, even color) play an important part in the descision.

If the horse has a good win ratio I tend to then look at how it has scored. For example the Dressage SMGCh (or whatever that abbreviation is) that have hundreds of thousands of points from one competition because there were more than 100 horses entered but didn't score out of the thirties have very little value to me. A horse with a more modest record - only a few hundred points from a few smaller competitions, etc - that scores in the high forties is much more valuable.

[Ricardo Ardo]

When looking at how competitive a horse is I look at win percentage, that's wins not places
30% win rate is a good horse 40% very good 50% outstanding. the minor places mean very little and only help to boost the points scored. That's just my opinion of course.

[BlackOak2]

I agree with Raikit. Percentages winning, points accrued... these have very little value to me. What I want to see is the actual score of the horse. And actually, I want to see a horse whose score is very often very close every time.
In my opinion, a horse that consistently has a good, quality score but only ever places second is worth more than a horse whose score moves from really great to rather poor that may have many wins, but also many losses.

A horse doesn't need to be great in order to be 'of good quality', but then again, I'm coming from a breeder's standpoint and not so much a showing standpoint. If I were to look at horses just for showing and not for use in breeding stock, then perhaps the horse that often places first but also often looses, may in fact be more valuable.

In the end, it all comes down to what you're looking for.

[Bitapetrone]

If i had to choose between title or W% I'd go with W%. As stated previously it's not very difficult to brute force a title so titles aren't a good representation of quality. A horse could be stuck at level 5 and have a MGCHwhatever title with a 14 W%. A horse could also have a high W% if it's being strategically entered against horses of poorer quality, but this requires more effort. Both the W% and the title can be manipulated, which is why I look at just score (in relation to the horse of course) when determining quality with regards to competition. Breeding record breakers is my focus so a horse's ability to compete well is of the utmost priority.

EDITED to be more specific about "quality"