Merens Pony Competition, PONIES UP

[Weaving]

First, a Bit of Background

The Mérens Pony is a beautiful and rare breed native to the Pyrenees and Ariègeois mountains. Hardy and black in colour, they share many physical characteristics with the Dales pony, Friesian and Arabian. They are athletic, surefooted and trainable, making them an excellent riding and driving pony.

For more in depth information on the Mérens Pony, please visit their Breeding Community.

Onto the Competition

The main aim of this competition is to promote this beautiful breed and encourage other players to widen the gene pool, because of this I will need a minimum of six entrants. Of course, having lots of fun is a given and getting rid of some of the spare cash I have floating around. Which brings me onto the good bit...

Prizes

First Place Team: $200,000

Individual Prizes

First Place: $100,000
Second Place: $75,000
Third Place : $50,000
Fourth Place: $25,000
Fifth Place: $12,500
Sixth Place: $6,250

Timescale

This competition will run for one month only, from the 16th of June until the 16th of July.

Ponies will be posted for sale (by offer) on the evening of the 15th of June. Offers will be accepted daily starting on the 16th of June and continuing until all ponies are claimed. Once your offer has been accepted you can do exactly as you please with your ponies, except rehome or retire.

Rules

All competitors must choose one of the below three options:
Option A) 1 Mérens Pony Mare (Aged 4)
Option B) 1 Mérens Pony Mare and 1 Mérens Pony Stallion (Aged 3)
Option C) 2 Mérens Pony Mares and 1 Mérens Pony Stallion

All ponies are a minimum of 96% purebred Mérens Pony. Ponies will be randomly assigned to each competitor and sold via private sale for an offer of $250 each from the 16th of June.

From this point forth, each competitor can do exactly as they please with their pony, but may not retire or rehome them. Any offspring the ponies produce however, may be retired or rehomed. Players are encouraged to train, breed and compete their ponies, some useful information below.

Competing

I will run affordable, breed specific daily competitions throughout this month for the most popular 8 events. As a starting point, I am suggesting the below competitions, but am able to change these to whatever people prefer.

Cutting
Hunter
Obstacle Driving
Saddleseat
Showjumping
Western Pleasure
Western Trail
Working Ranch

Players are of course free to enter their ponies into events other than the ones I run!

Breeding

Players are encouraged to breed their ponies with either the studs I will make available to the public, or if option B or C was chosen, with their own stallions also. I will compile a list of available stallions here.

Scoring

At the end of the month I will tally up points and award prizes to the ponies that are the most individually successful, this means you could win more than once. There will also be a grand prize for the player with the most successful team of ponies. The scoring will work as follows:

Competitive Points

Win - 9 points
Place - 6 Points
Show - 3 Points
For example, a pony with a competition record of: 3 Wins, 4 Second Place and 5 Third Place, would total 66 points

Title Points

Champion - 20 points
Grand Champion - 40 points
Master Champion - 60 points
Grand Master Champion - 80 points and so on.

World Record Points

Any world record broken, level 1-9, will receive 100 points.
A Level 10 record broken, will receive 500 points.

Breeding Points

45k+GP foal - 15 points
50k+GP foal - 25 points
55k+GP foal - 35 points
60k+GP foal - 50 points
65k+GP foal - 65 points
All foals must be at least 96% pure Mérens Pony.

The scoring looks confusing, but remember, I'm the one who's going to have to deal with that, so don't let it put you off!

The Ponies

I will be compiling a numbered list of ponies in this space here over the coming week so that you can see the sort of standard you would be working with. If you can't bear to wait then have a look in this pasture, it's full of em!

Players Entered (Option A, B or C)

1. Ricardo Ardo (Option C)
2. sandyleigh79 (Option B)
3. QuesthavenFarms (Option C)
4. Qim (Option C)
5. 8arbarossa (Option C)
6.

And finally, good luck and happy entering!

[8arbarossa]

i like

[Weaving]

i like

Yay!! Any preference on how many horses are given out, fillies/colts etc? Or just happy to go along with whatever gets decided?

[8arbarossa]

i would say L give everybody 2 mares and cheap stud costs.. then you make some money and let other people work your horses at the same time.. seems like a good deal

[QuesthavenFarms]

I'm interested.

[Weaving]

.

I'm interested.

Great to have you both on board, if I get 6 people interested then I'll run this as soon as possible.
I think the 2 mares idea could be good in terms of breeding, the only thing I was wondering about was competitively mares aren't as good. Keep filling me in on your ideas guys! I want this to be as much fun as possible

[8arbarossa]

.

I'm interested.

Great to have you both on board, if I get 6 people interested then I'll run this as soon as possible.
I think the 2 mares idea could be good in terms of breeding, the only thing I was wondering about was competitively mares aren't as good. Keep filling me in on your ideas guys! I want this to be as much fun as possible

The goals is to make more horses, right? so when people get their fillies, they have to make their own stallion for the competitions.

[Weaving]

Great to have you both on board, if I get 6 people interested then I'll run this as soon as possible.
I think the 2 mares idea could be good in terms of breeding, the only thing I was wondering about was competitively mares aren't as good. Keep filling me in on your ideas guys! I want this to be as much fun as possible

The goals is to make more horses, right? so when people get their fillies, they have to make their own stallion for the competitions.

For me I'd love to see more good quality Merens ponies around, but the number one goal is for everyone to have lots of fun doing this!

Maybe I could give people a maximum of 2 mares and 1 stallion, then they could breed entirely by themselves if they wanted, compete with whichever ponies they liked or breed to the studs I will provide for the public for $100. Then it wouldn't be expensive to keep fresh blood in their lines and they could start a proper string of ponies if they wished? Similarly if people wanted they could choose just 1 or 2 ponies so they weren't taking up lots of room in their stables. Let me know what you think!

[Qim]

Count me in as the third competitor, ya

Maybe keep competitions separated between mares and stallions, as an attempt to play relatively fair? Would certainly increase the odds of people training and competing mares, if nothing else.

[Weaving]

Count me in as the third competitor, ya

Maybe keep competitions separated between mares and stallions, as an attempt to play relatively fair? Would certainly increase the odds of people training and competing mares, if nothing else.

Woohooo for a third competitor! The separating mares and stallions could be a good idea too. Have bred up 23 foals for you guys to choose from already!