Guide to Understanding Showing

What we know of the showing formula:

Winners are mostly determined by having the highest total of the 2 discipline specialty stats, and smaller factors like increased luck through higher levels of training after 3 years of age, along with a small random factor. These are all accounted for upon entering the horse in the competition. If a horse gained stats after it was entered but before the show ran, those gained stats would not count toward that specific show. 
Conformation currently has no effect on showing, and it’s not likely that it will in the future.



What grades are:

Horse grades are based off of the horse’s total stats, not just the 2 main specialty stats. The horse will go up in grades once it reaches certain stat points.



Grade Levels (from this topic here):

N1 100-149
N2 150 -199
N3 200-249
N4 250-299
N5 300-349
L1 350-399
L2 400-449
L3 450-499
L4 500-549
L5 550-599
R1 600-699
R2 700-799
R3 800-899
R4 900-999
R5 1,000-1,099
Nat1 1,100-1,299
Nat2 1,300-1,499
Na3 1,500-1,699
Na4 1,700-1899
Na5 1,900-2,099
I1 2,100-2,499
I2 2,500-2,999
I3 3,000-3,999
I4 4,000-4,999
I5 5,000+



How stats impact grades, positively or negatively:

Since grades are based off of total stats, there is room for varying degrees of quality when it comes to showing. Since show winners are mostly calculated based on the discipline stats, a horse that has most of the total stats in the two discipline specific stats will generally perform better in shows than a horse that has more dispersed stats. 
Most horses with a foundation level of non-specialty stats (or NS stats) or less will do well in showing, though anything above 65 NS stats may start to struggle. The more NS above 65 the more difficult it will be for a horse to win.

Although this isn't known for certain, with the showing tweak that accounts for a small amount of NS stats there is a chance that a horse may have NS stats that are too low. There is a possibility that once a horse reaches less than 30 NS stats (10 in each area) it may start to perform more poorly. However, there isn't currently enough information on this and is mostly speculation at this point.



Best time to show:

There is a way to help horses on the higher NS stat range win some shows, as well as help those horses in the low NS stat range that have fallen behind in their herd. If either of these are happening, it may be better to wait until the horse’s stats are closer to the next grade in order to increase the likelihood of it winning. This is due to waiting until your horse has marginally higher stats compared to the rest of the horses in the grade, giving your horse the advantage and a higher chance of winning.



How many horses in each show to get benefits:
In order for your horses to gain stats from showing, there must be at least 5 horses in the show including yours. Only the horses in the top 3 places can gain stats, so it is usually better to dipurse your horses in more shows rather than place them all in the same shows. 3 horses per show gives each horse the best chance at getting stats, though in areas where there isn’t any other competition 5 horses per show yields a comparable amount of stat gains as well.



How to improve the individual horse:

Training
Training is done through arenas in player stables, which can easily be found through the Training Center. After every 10th training session, the horse is able to gain a stat boost and level up until training level 5. With each level of training, the horse's luck factor increases. The luck factor is counted toward showing as an added advantage over skills, by having higher levels of luck a horse has a small chance to win a show over a horse that has more stats.
Even though the highest training level is level 5, horses can still be trained after they have reached that level and still gain a stat bonus after every 10th training session.

Tack
Tack gives an added bonus to the horse’s stats, giving it an added bonus when showing. Higher grades of tack will give off a greater point bonus. These stats have no effect to the horse’s grade, they are only taken into account after they have been placed into a show.

Treats
Standard treats give off stats for one specific discipline. Single treats and bagged treats give off the same amount of stats, the only differences are bagged treats contain a higher quantity of uses and provide more happiness (10%) compared to single use (5%).

Carrot +1-2 SPD
Green Apple +1-2 INT
Red Apple +1-2 STR
Turnip +1-2 END
Yellow Apple +1-2 AGI

Cube treats and mints are slightly different, they randomly give stats in any area. 

Sugar Cube
+0-1 AGI
+0-1 SPD
+0-1 STR
+0-1 INT
+0-1 END

Hay Cube
 +0-2 AGI
+0-2 SPD
+0-2 STR
+0-2 INT
+0-2 END

Peppermint
+0-3 AGI
+0-3 SPD
+0-3 STR
+0-3 INT
+0-3 END



What "cubing" is:

“Cubing” is a common term used for horses that are being treated Sugar Cube, Hay Cube, or Peppermint treats. A cube treated(CT) horse can gain more stats through treating than with the standard treats, though this can effect stat gains elsewhere.Since the stats are dispersed through CT then the horse will tend to do worse in showing, losing out on the stats that it would gain in that area. Thankfully they can instead be placed in the Riding School, which on average doesn’t give out as many stats as showing does but in combination with cube treats can keep pretty even. This combination can possibly give more stats than showing would depending on which treat is used and the quality of the horse.

Cube treats may seem rather counter intuitive for showing, though when used properly they can allow a horse to skip through the beginning grades if there isn’t very much competition. They can later be converted to the proper specialty once they reach a grade with more competition to avoid your own horses competing against each other.



The Conversion Method:

This method tends to be a bit more on the pricey end of things, though can be an alternative to showing when dealing with a large number of horses.

The conversion method usually involves setting a horse’s discipline to a specialty that you don’t want in order to avoid having to spend credits upon conversion later, treating it cubes or mints in conjunction with schooling and then converting the horse’s specialty through the Training Center to the one you do want at a later point. This allows the player to bypass showing horses through lower grades if there isn’t fellow competition or even bypass showing completely until the horse is of breeding age.

In order to convert for showing, special attention needs to be paid to the Base Stats at the bottom of your horse’s page. These stats will not change through the conversion process! If a horse has low NS stats for the specialty you want to convert to in their base stats, converting will have no issues. However, if there are high NS stats in the base stats, then unfortunately even after conversion the horse will probably not do very well in showing. This usually happens when two CT horses are bred together without being converted first. These foals from CT parents are what is generally referred to as a ‘cubed horse’, which is a rather confusing term since CT horses are also frequently referred to as ‘cubed’.

This method is more common with large herds of horses as some people find schooling to be easier than showing, or may struggle to find enough competition for their horses. This way is generally easier to make EVD as not as much effort is put into it than you would have to with showing to make a similar income, though unfortunately this method may not gain as many stats as showing a horse for it’s whole life would.

Last edited on 2019-05-08 at 15:30:40 by ξιίzα Ð

This is very useful, thank you for sharing! A lot of great tips.

Last edited on 2019-05-11 at 05:15:20 by Akvelins ⚜️

I had already figured out the showing bit, but thanks for explaining what cubing is. I had heard the term but couldn't find a definition for it. What I typically do is show the horses that are close to leveling up, then put the rest into the riding school. I get money regardless of if my horses place in the money or not. Win/win.