musings on stats, showing, and treats

With all stats (as opposed to just discipline specific stats) now determining what level a horse competes in, I’m realizing that my old habit of “evening out” stats on foals with treats is probably a big disadvantage to my horses.

I didn’t like the way it looked when a horse had hundreds of stats in its discipline-specific categories and single digit stats in the others, so I’d always give enough treats/feed to get the horses to 25+ in all stats and then focus on increasing discipline-specific stats to boost their competitiveness.

I also fed a ton of peppermints, which have the effect of randomly boosting any stat category regardless of whether it was one needed for the discipline or not.

So now, two racing discipline horses with identical tack might each have 100 stats, but if one of them has 20 in all the categories (strength, speed, agility, intelligence, and endurance) and the other has 50 in speed, 50 in endurance, and 0 in all other categories, the second horse will always win.

Has anyone else considered this?
Does this change anything about your treating plans?
I’ve stopped feeding peppermints (partially for this reason, partially for the price inflation :P), but I’ve also been getting lots of haycubes from the fountain and seeing them sit around makes me sad.

I only treat for the stats they need for their discipline.

I just treat the main two stats and attempt to keep them even, which is what I've always done anyway.

It is a disadvantage to have even stats across the board. I did hear someone say something a few days ago about changing a horse's discipline, and then changing it back, as a way to correct treating mistakes. I haven't tried it, so I can't verify that it will work, and of course, it will be very expensive, costing $10,000 for the first change, and then 2 EVC to change it back. Also, it won't do anything about the stats the horse was born with, so if you've been doing the level stat thing for generations, your horses would still be at a disadvantage.

Hay cubes?? What are you asking for to get those?

I assume that it's "wish for items".

Lol when I wished for items I got one red apple. I've had better luck wishing for the horses and getting $3000-7000 cash

Just simply switch their discipline to any other and their stats will magically poof to the stats needed for that discipline. It happened with my completely evened Akhal Theke as well:
Allrounder

He had about 60-70 stats in each region before.

Well, the stats will magically poof, but only the ones that were the result of treating (or feed before the recode.) If they were born with spread out stats, switching disciplines won't help with that.

If you have the EVC to spare, you can switch the discipline, and then switch it back, to correct non-specialty treating without having to switch tack to another discipline. Not cheap, of course, but then neither is buying new tack and upgrading it to match the new discipline.

I've never used any of the special treats specifically because of the point you bring up. Discipline-specific treats only, as I want as many of a horse's stats as possible in the correct areas.

And it's funny, I always got a kick out of breeding horses with a slew of stats in the correct spots for their discipline, and then 1s or 0s in everything else, lol.

All rounder was born with these stats and not fed to them. Then at least 50 would have remained in the ones that are not his discipline. So birth stats also switch.