Showing is quite painful. ..

$7,241 Amount earned in shows yesterday.
$21,640 Amount spend on shows yesterday.

Something is terribly wrong with showing. Is it because my tack ain't 100% repaired?

All I can say is most days I spend more than I earn except on my main account but even then the profit is barely $6k and they are high stat horses.

But I have a lot of horses to show so expenses are hight & I also enter every horse regardless of how it places.

I also have auto show because of the numbers I have & I think someone said in another forum if you individually choose which shows to enter (low entrants for each of your horses grade) you have a better chance of winning.

Having said all that most people in real life make no money from showing horses - they do it for the love/enjoyment of it. You cant say EV isnt real on that score!

Tack repair doesn't have anything to do with showing; a 15% bridle is as good as a 98% one :)

that said, my "secret" to making money AND stats while showing is (1) not entering horses that have stats at the very low end of their level range, (2) entering the most expensive shows with at least 4 other horses, having checked to be sure no more than 1 of them have horses with higher discipline stats than yours entered, and (3) doing your entering barely before Cron runs, so you know that there's less of a chance other players/horses will enter those shows

I'm making roughly 10k a day on showing, though I've got a range from -10k to 30k on showing. Honestly I just auto show my horses on highest entries (nothing too fancy and I'm able to make a decent amount). Even on my spare account where all my horse are foundations I was making money showing until I had to lock them due to time constraints.

I also show on highest entries, but for yesterday half of my horses got into 1k shows due to those being shows with high entries. So I had one extreme case of make a third of what it costed.

I can't individually choose, since I do not know what the shows cost where individual horses where in.

Right now looks like I'm earning just under 1k what I paid for my shows. -shrugs- I'm entering the highest entry shows in the hopes of getting wins so I get stats, so I really don't care what my losses are. I was pleasantly surprised to see I wasnt losing nearly as much as I thought I'd be.

The perfect money-making show strategy is to enter $100 shows that have no other entries. (Enter right before Cron to ensure you remain the only entry.)

Of course, this is not always possible, and it ensures that you will never gain stats from the shows, which is a huge drawback.

These are the general principles of show-entering that I pay attention to.

1. The higher the entry fee, the more money you have the potential to make, but also the more money you have the potential to lose. Put your best, most winning horses in the pricey shows, and your weaker horses in cheaper shows.

2. High stat horses are not necessarily more likely to win. The stats need to be in the traits associated with the show specialty. For example, take two show jumpers, both with 100 stats. The horse with 50 stats each in speed and agility will do infinitely better than the one that is spread evenly over all the traits. It will even do better than a horse with 149 total stats, with evenly spread traits, even though the latter horse is at the top of its stat division.

3. Only three horses per show can win money. If you enter more than three horses in the same show, you are guaranteed to lose at least one entire entry fee. There is no way to prevent this from happening if you auto show.

4. Tack is incredibly important. The state of repair does not matter, but the level does. Level 5 tack gives you 101 free stats in each of your specialty traits. These stats will not bump you to a higher division. Fully leveled tack gives you a huge advantage over even the best horses who lack tack.

5. The more horses in a show, the more likely you will be not to place.

I personally show primarily for stats, so I do sometimes lose money on shows. I have to compromise some of these principles to make sure there are always at least five horses in the shows I enter. I usually do fairly well, though. I often gain money, and when I lose, it's not a huge amount.

If you are just starting out, especially if you are starting with foundation stock, or horses whose stats are not concentrated on their specialty's traits, it will be very difficult at first. My advice would be to hang in there, treat for your specialty as much as possible, and show what you can afford. With thoughtful breeding, your next generations will do increasingly better in shows. It is possible to make a profit showing, but you do have to be strategic with breeding, treats, and entries.

I have consistently lost money daily when I showed, and my horses were entered in auto showing. My tack is all 5/5, always repaired, horses' stats are good and horses are treated in relation to their specialty. I have noticed, though, that I have a large number of show horses and often, my horses had entered shows where they were competing against my other horses (a function of auto showing, I suppose). So of course, I'd have a lot of horses that wouldn't place 1st to 3rd if they're showing against one another... I expect that's the reason I consistently lost a lot of money each day.

until training is back up, I have locked my QHs.

Oh, I just got this: $19,840 amount earned in shows yesterday.

So it wasn't so bad after all.

Yesterday I was really late getting entries in and in fact there were no shows available for my novice 2 horses. I have been really lazy since I upgraded and got autoshow. I just put all my tack up to 5/5 and show everyone in either cheapest shows or highest entries. I had been doing really well (+3-5000) a day but yesterday lost money. I'm guessing because many of my horses did not have shows to enter. I like the high entry shows because I get stats lol still cheaper than peppermints in my opinion. Smiles, Sparkles

(redacted)

I made expenditure + $34K yesterday on showing. I've never lost money showing, and I'm not sure why some people are. :/ I use autoshow and only stick a handful of horses in 'most expensive' (ones that I know will win), but otherwise just use 'highest entries'. Not too sure what to tell people who are losing money.

I would point out that if you start showing your horses before competitions run then the amount you spend/make on competitions can look wrong.

Example:
So today I show all my horses before competitions are finished running. This costs me 15k, since showing also cost 15k the day before now my bank will say that I spent 30k today on shows and then will show my actual earnings 20k. Which looks like I lost 10k yesterday even though I actually made 5k. The next day you'll show an enormous jump in amount earned from shows. This would of course only holds true if you don't compete your horses everyday at the same time. I think this may be some of what megansparrow experienced (though maybe I'm wrong).

havent showd much, building my herd first but didnt have mmuch problem before, sometimes yeah, other not so much
only the three first places gets stats right?

If you have a lot of horses and you use the auto show, just select different criteria every so often and you won't vr shooting yourself in the foot by having all your horses competing against each other.