Showing Strategies, please

Would some of the more experienced players here please share some of their strategies for successful showing? I don't understand what the training progress bar means and how it relates to showing, nor do I understand how that works in combination with the stat points. How do I know when my horse is at his best to show?

Last edited on 2017-03-01 at 09:45:00 by RoSnow

I put my horses in ridding schools till they are twenty points from getting into the next level. Then I show them. When training gets to ten bars you can convert it to stats that, helps the horse win more shows.

Thanks for answering so quickly. I'm still a little confused. If it's not too much trouble, would you take a look at Autumn Storm as an example, and tell me which numbers you're using when you determine his points. Is it the same as the stats?

First advice I have to give is to make sure your horse is only gaining stats in the two stats related to its discipline. The horse you linked above should only be gaining in speed and endurance but it looks like stats were added to the other three areas (compare them to the base stats near the notes section). All those extra stats in the wrong areas are holding your horse back. My advice would be to convert the horse to a new discipline so those stats go to the right places. If you want them to stay in racing you would have to convert a second time, but the vast majority of Quarter Horses on this game are western, so it might benefit you to change. (:

With training, training level is part of what affects how your horse does in shows. Stat boost points are also gained by training but training level and stat boosts do not affect each other. Training level maxes out at 5 but you can continue to train in order to get stat boosts.

It's also important when showing to try to stick to classes that have low entries. There must be at least five for any of the horses to gain stats, but you should try to enter classes that will run with 5 or 6 entries if you can.

I'd elaborate more but typing on my phone is slow and annoying. xD hopefully that's some help though.

Thanks!

I got him as a rescue, so he already had a discipline and lot of stat points in speed and endurance. To which discipline would you advise me to convert him? And wouldn't that result in wasted points in speed and endurance?

Their are a lot of quarter horses in western shows. The biggest thing is are you planning on breeding him/her and to what disapline horse. The reason I ask is that you will want to match that disapline to the one you're planning on breeding it to so the foal has the best stats in the disapline you are heading to.

When you convert a horse, any stats that are not the base stats will be moved to the two new speciality stats for their new discipline. So you won't have any wasted stats because the two that are highest now will also shift.

I recommend western just because it will give you more options for horses to breed to, since most of the Quarter Horses on the site are western.

Thank you. I didn't know that the stats shift. Good to know. And hour point about a bigger breeding pool is a good one.

I've done a lot of looking into this and I haven't found any one aspect of the horse's status that ensures it does well in shows. Or any two or three for that matter. I didn't know there needed to be five entries in order to gain stats though, interesting.

But as mentioned above, I have found that things such as: training level/progress, stat boost points, age, conformation, tack levels, tack durability, horse points, player points, primary or secondary or overall stats - none of it seems to predict how well the horse does. I've gone through many shows and compared the entries and how they fared and they all have conflicting and contradictory findings. [Just to clarify, primary stats would be intelligence and agility in Dressage, for example, and secondary would be everything else.]

I know some of those thins seems a bit far fetched anyways but I've been trying to find an algorithm since the recode with no such luck.

Basically, I'm refuting that information because I've found that those aspects do not accurately predict placement, while simultaneously re-asking the question in case I'm missing anything.

Also, text can't portray this but I'm not salty, just curious.

Nickelove, there's also a random factor in showing. There's measurable variables behind it, just pure chance. Training can help boost the odds of doing well in that regard, but it's just a 'boost', not a guarantee.

Nickelove thats very interesting to me.In my mind Primary stats for my western horses,the int. And ag.,are definately what I focus on but I dont consider the secondary stats getting a few pts here and there a bad thing.I do want my horses primary stats as high as i can make them but I also dont like seeing the horse only have like single digit numbers for endurance and strength.I would rather see decent set of secondary stats to contribute to the horse's well roundedness.I dont mean the secondary stats should be super close to the numbers in the primary stats but a western horse with no endurance or strength would strike fear in my heart in RL so out of my own preferences I try to throw a few pts to those every so often.I aim for high confo numbers,high stat numbers,and pretty faces so I enjoy breeding for a horse that can cover all those bases while still placing the few tines a week I do show them.I will say that I have not studied the way placings are determined in shows, my guys seem to do fairly well.Your comment makes me want to dig further into it as to if those secondary stats gaining occasional points truely helps or hinders.

Last edited on 2017-03-04 at 17:27:24 by SpringHillEstates

Additional points outside of the two specialty stats absolutely hinder your horse in showing. Even a small amount can hold your horse back significantly, especially in Novice and Local levels, where you only have 50 points before you gain a new level.

There are other factors that can make an otherwise good show horse falter, including incompletely leveled tack (a horse with no tack will automatically be 202 stats behind a horse fully equipped with level 5 tack), or a low training level (your horse will have poor luck compared to another horse, and could conceivably lose to a slightly inferior horse just based on that poor luck.)

If two horses both have 200 stat points, both are trained to training level 5, and both are fully equipped with level 5 tack, it all comes down to where those stats are located. If one horse has 100 stat points each in the two specialty traits, and none in the others, it will have 200 points of showing power. If the other horse has 40 stat points spread over each of the traits, it will end up with only 80 points of showing power. They will both show as Novice 3, but the first horse will blow away the second horse.

My horses with 50 stats outside of their specialty traits show lightyears better than my horses that are otherwise similar in training level and tack, but have 60 or 70 stats outside the specialty traits. Once you get up to 80 or more, they're pretty hopeless.

Please don't take what I say lightly. When I was still showing all of my horses, I rose to the top of the All-Time Money Earned (which measures money earned through shows only) after playing the game for less than a year, and my horses were consistently on the leaderboards of money and stats gained. I didn't stop because it wasn't working. I stopped because it was taking too much of my time. And my horses aren't on the leaderboards anymore not because my methods don't work. The fell off the leaderboard because I cycle them through being locked and unlocked. When I unlock a horses to show them, they do just as well as they always did.

You may not like how they look, but those horses with single-digit "secondary" stats are showing powerhouses, and, with fully-upgraded tack, they will wipe the floor with any competition. I wish my horses were all at that point, but I'm only a handful of generations into my breeding program, and it takes a long time to breed a horse to that level. I will get there someday.

To sum up, showing results depend on stats, with a random factor thrown in. The horse with the highest specialty trait stats (through the horse's actual stats, and the boost given by upgraded tack) will win, unless the random factor works against you. You can nudge the random factor in your favor with higher training levels. You can ensure the highest specialty trait stats possible while staying in a lower grade of show by keeping your non-specialty traits as low as possible (higher non-specialty traits will bump your horse up to higher show grades but not help it win those shows) and by equipping fully-upgraded tack.

Stat boost points, age, conformation, tack durability, horse points, and player points have absolutely nothing to do with showing. It is only total horse stats (to determine the show grade, and thus the difficulty of competition), specialty trait stats (to determine which horse in the show is the best at that specialty), tack level (to give your horse a boost in stats without pushing it up to a higher show grade) and training level (to ensure the random factor works more in your favor.) There will be some fluctuation due to the random factor, but if you keep these key factors in mind, you will give yourself a very good chance of creating a successful show horse.

Sorry, I know I'm late but I've been busy and I've been sick.

Anyways, as much as I'd like it to be that simple, it simply is not (lol pun intended). Stats were naturally the first thing I considered and the cumulative total of the primary stats did not have much bearing on the outcome (along with comparable tack and training). Tack and training also did not have much of an impact either; I've seen shows where a horse equipped with two pieces of tack has come in first place against fully equipped level 5 gear, amongst other examples. As much as I regret to concede, I feel like the randomization as a much larger impact than initially expected.

Also, contrary to your findings, my Novice horses, particularly in Endurance, always have the most success with showing. I think that's partially due to the fact that all my other horses are very much geared towards the strategies of the Old Equiverse (rip in pieces) where I did beyond stellar. I'm not surprised at all, but old horses are obsolete in this version.

I pointedly said I looked at those things because there was no other trend - I didn't expect them to have anything to do with showing but desperate times, you know. But I'll test out your methods and see what happens. I'll update in 20 weeks lol.

as someone who has raised several batches of foundies since the recode, I can assure you that Confessor is absolutely right.

The reason novice horses do so well regardless of exact stat allotment is that most novice horses are store horses, so they're basically competing against horses quite similair to themselves, meaning the small effect that luck has appears to be magnified simply because it's one of the few things that can determine show placement when Horse X is all but identical to Horse Y. The Powerhouse showers that confessor referred to (single digit non-spec) are very unlikely to be novice level, even as foals. They're wiping the floor with their regional, national, and international competition.