When to Stop Competing

I’m back on EV after taking a break for a while and I want to take a slightly different approach to the game. I want to be a bit more organized, so I will be separating horses who do well in competitions and those who don’t do so well. My question is; for how long should I keep showing the horses that aren’t doing well before separating them from those that are doing well? Another question I have is; can horses be good or bad competitors at different divisions, for example, can a horse consistently place horribly in L1 shows but later on place well in all or most of the R3 shows they enter?

Your question of "how long should you keep showing them" will really depend on why they aren't showing well. 

Some things that affect showing (like tack grade, training level) can improve over time, ans some things (like whether the horse's stats are at the high or low end of it's division) will change continuously through it's lifetime, and other things (like high non-specialty stats) won't ever improve and will always drag a horse down to some degree. 

How well a horse shows doesn't depend on what level they are (Local versus Regional). It depends on the above factors that I mentioned. As a horse goes up in division it is usually also increasing in training level, so that will make it do better. But the same horse that was winning Local 5 shows because it was at the top of it's stats in Local 5 will, by the nature of the division system, be at the very bottom or Regional 1 stats limits. 

Many players will only show their horses when they are near the top of their division in stats. I personally Riding School mine unless they are (by stat) in the top ~10% of their division. For the most part, this has resulted in all my horses following this method eventually winning at least 4 of the achievement ribbons, so it seems to be working. I also use level 5 tack and try to keep my non-specialty stats under 65 whenever possible. 

Thank you so much for the thorough explanation and help! I completely forgot about the stat brackets for each division (I know I have a chart of it saved somewhere)! Now that I'm refreshed on strategy, I can now get my horses back into shape!