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Competitive Breeding: A Simplified Look Into Rapidly Improving Competitive Genes
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Competitive Breeding: A Simplified Look Into Rapidly Improving Competitive Genes
Competitive Breeding:
A Simplified Look Into Rapidly Improving Competitive Genes
Preface
When I started my quest to breed a record holder with a line I started myself (almost there - 0.5 ft off still), I had a sort of “attack strategy” in mind. I had learned and absorbed so much from other competitors in the community that I felt like I had some strong footing to start on, and I incorporated more of my own ideas. This guide is for the players who may not have that, or may want a more in-depth guide and not want to have to search around for this information.
I ask that if you have anything to add, please do so and if I think it pertains I can add it up here.
History
I started playing this game in late 2018, and for the first year I really didn’t breed competitively. Sure, I entered horses into competitions, and my thoroughbreds had just as good stats on paper as any around, but something was missing. The horses just weren’t getting the fantastic scores of the horses that constantly defeated them.
After cruising the forums and checking out tons of guides, there was one term that was tossed around quite frequently: “Heart.” But was did this mean? Was it a gene, or luck of the draw? How heritable was it? How much of an effect did it truly have on competition?
That’s when BlackOak2 dropped The Hidden Competition Genes: All About Heart. This was the first all inclusive guide to the hidden gene that anyone in the community had seen, and it helped boost my programs significantly. Suddenly, after implementing practices that encouraged the passing of the “heart” gene, my horses were running much, much more competitive times.
But I was still only focusing on the sire’s side of the equation. Only studding to the best stallions with the best times/scores was a step in the right direction, but only half the battle. Then, during my time writing for the Racing Newsletter, I had the opportunity to interview Jewels65 in the 12th Issue. I feel like their quote on testing fillies/mares sums up the solution to what I was missing:
[quote] The one thing I did that really helped, was to sell or rehome any filly that couldn't beat her dam's time . . . The mare was by another one of my champions. I'd already whittled the times down by quite a lot. My mares started out running locals (untrained) at 2.16 and now they all run under 2.13.5. But again, you never really know how good of a producer they will be. [Fabulous] Marmalade's dam wasn't the fastest in my barn.. but when I tested him as a foal, he ran at 2.12.38. I've never seen anything that fast before. I was jumping for joy. lol.[/quote]
So, overall, this is how I learned about score/time testing all my potential breeders and how this encourages the passage of the heart gene into your lines.
Application Into a New Project
Of course, this was all related to the racing discipline. However, all of these ideas and principles, in theory, were applicable to any sport. I soon grew tired of racing and wanted to move on to a harder, more original project that I knew would bring me joy. I decided that I would A) build a herd of a breed that, at that point, had only 6 in-game and then B) breed them to be record breaking Log Pullers. It took me a while to figure out how to actually breed a new breed, as I had never done that before.
However soon I had a healthy population of Latvian Heavy Drafts going and they were at around 30-40k HGP. I knew I had to get that up and so I selectively bred until they were about mid 50k HGP. Then, an idea took root in my mind. What if, instead of breeding for a gold strength stat or for a high conformation, what if I started testing them now in live competition, and selectively breed the best pulling ones together? Would this naturally bring higher conformation and stats? More importantly, would this ensure that I had the heart gene at the forefront of my priorities?
Soon, my hypothesis was proven correct. My Latvians soon started gaining green and then gold stats in strength and stamina, and they slowly formed the bulky, Roman nosed and shorter backed physique of a log puller. For example, compare the build of these 2 horses: the first being one of the first generations of Latvians and the latter being my best log puller:
Although noticeably better that the first, this latter horse’s conformation still has room for improvement compared to the stats of his peers, and yet, he still manages to out pull even the best of them on a normal basis. Why does this less than perfect horse regularly beat horses with a deeper rib cage and flank, shorter neck and longer hip like the horse below?
Simple: it’s “Heart.”
Breeding Strategy
Now that I’ve told you how it is that this more hands off approach to breeding works, I will now outline my process and how you can implement it into your breeding program.
Firstly I make sure all horses are at the same weight, temperament, and age (breeding age typically). Since you can enter several horses per contest in log pull, I would collect over 20 potential breeders that had aged up and stick them in my freezer account. I would make 10 level 10 contests in log pull and then enter them in. I would record all of their scores, then rehome the lower scoring ones.
Since I purposefully only keep 4-5 barns of mares which are always full, I go through and age out the ones who have the lowest scores, and them replace them with the newly tested, higher scoring mares. As for the colts, they typically go to training in this phase of the project if they are not rehomed, as I have gotten them to a competitive level. However back in the beginning, I would only keep 2-3 stallions on the farm, and they would be aged out and replaced by better ones, just like the mares.
But how would you do this if you are breeding competitively for, say, saddleseat or racing? Though it will take slightly longer and you may lose some turns, you can do the exact same thing in local shows. I like to test 10 times for a good score, but if you are trying not to lose to many turns, you can edit this to 5. (Don’t let sentimentality play a factor in giving a horse a bias: remember that there will ALWAYS be another like it).
And that is basicly all there is to it. No more grinding to breed for a 65 speed racehorse, or for an elusive gold strength stat for your pullers. You can start using this method at any point in your project. By using this method, you ensure that your end horses will have the hidden heart gene and furthermore you will enforce a sort of “natural selection” in which only the horses that have the traits to keep them from being rehomed will go on to reproduce. I hope that this idea of “survival of the fittest” will help you rapidly increase the competitiveness of your herd as it did in mine!
Sorry for the long post, but I feel like I really could have used this guide when i was a beginner/intermediate type player. Peace out and don’t forget to ask questions or add your own thoughts to this post!
A Simplified Look Into Rapidly Improving Competitive Genes
Preface
When I started my quest to breed a record holder with a line I started myself (almost there - 0.5 ft off still), I had a sort of “attack strategy” in mind. I had learned and absorbed so much from other competitors in the community that I felt like I had some strong footing to start on, and I incorporated more of my own ideas. This guide is for the players who may not have that, or may want a more in-depth guide and not want to have to search around for this information.
I ask that if you have anything to add, please do so and if I think it pertains I can add it up here.
History
I started playing this game in late 2018, and for the first year I really didn’t breed competitively. Sure, I entered horses into competitions, and my thoroughbreds had just as good stats on paper as any around, but something was missing. The horses just weren’t getting the fantastic scores of the horses that constantly defeated them.
After cruising the forums and checking out tons of guides, there was one term that was tossed around quite frequently: “Heart.” But was did this mean? Was it a gene, or luck of the draw? How heritable was it? How much of an effect did it truly have on competition?
That’s when BlackOak2 dropped The Hidden Competition Genes: All About Heart. This was the first all inclusive guide to the hidden gene that anyone in the community had seen, and it helped boost my programs significantly. Suddenly, after implementing practices that encouraged the passing of the “heart” gene, my horses were running much, much more competitive times.
But I was still only focusing on the sire’s side of the equation. Only studding to the best stallions with the best times/scores was a step in the right direction, but only half the battle. Then, during my time writing for the Racing Newsletter, I had the opportunity to interview Jewels65 in the 12th Issue. I feel like their quote on testing fillies/mares sums up the solution to what I was missing:
[quote] The one thing I did that really helped, was to sell or rehome any filly that couldn't beat her dam's time . . . The mare was by another one of my champions. I'd already whittled the times down by quite a lot. My mares started out running locals (untrained) at 2.16 and now they all run under 2.13.5. But again, you never really know how good of a producer they will be. [Fabulous] Marmalade's dam wasn't the fastest in my barn.. but when I tested him as a foal, he ran at 2.12.38. I've never seen anything that fast before. I was jumping for joy. lol.[/quote]
So, overall, this is how I learned about score/time testing all my potential breeders and how this encourages the passage of the heart gene into your lines.
Application Into a New Project
Of course, this was all related to the racing discipline. However, all of these ideas and principles, in theory, were applicable to any sport. I soon grew tired of racing and wanted to move on to a harder, more original project that I knew would bring me joy. I decided that I would A) build a herd of a breed that, at that point, had only 6 in-game and then B) breed them to be record breaking Log Pullers. It took me a while to figure out how to actually breed a new breed, as I had never done that before.
However soon I had a healthy population of Latvian Heavy Drafts going and they were at around 30-40k HGP. I knew I had to get that up and so I selectively bred until they were about mid 50k HGP. Then, an idea took root in my mind. What if, instead of breeding for a gold strength stat or for a high conformation, what if I started testing them now in live competition, and selectively breed the best pulling ones together? Would this naturally bring higher conformation and stats? More importantly, would this ensure that I had the heart gene at the forefront of my priorities?
Soon, my hypothesis was proven correct. My Latvians soon started gaining green and then gold stats in strength and stamina, and they slowly formed the bulky, Roman nosed and shorter backed physique of a log puller. For example, compare the build of these 2 horses: the first being one of the first generations of Latvians and the latter being my best log puller:
Although noticeably better that the first, this latter horse’s conformation still has room for improvement compared to the stats of his peers, and yet, he still manages to out pull even the best of them on a normal basis. Why does this less than perfect horse regularly beat horses with a deeper rib cage and flank, shorter neck and longer hip like the horse below?
Simple: it’s “Heart.”
Breeding Strategy
Now that I’ve told you how it is that this more hands off approach to breeding works, I will now outline my process and how you can implement it into your breeding program.
Firstly I make sure all horses are at the same weight, temperament, and age (breeding age typically). Since you can enter several horses per contest in log pull, I would collect over 20 potential breeders that had aged up and stick them in my freezer account. I would make 10 level 10 contests in log pull and then enter them in. I would record all of their scores, then rehome the lower scoring ones.
Since I purposefully only keep 4-5 barns of mares which are always full, I go through and age out the ones who have the lowest scores, and them replace them with the newly tested, higher scoring mares. As for the colts, they typically go to training in this phase of the project if they are not rehomed, as I have gotten them to a competitive level. However back in the beginning, I would only keep 2-3 stallions on the farm, and they would be aged out and replaced by better ones, just like the mares.
But how would you do this if you are breeding competitively for, say, saddleseat or racing? Though it will take slightly longer and you may lose some turns, you can do the exact same thing in local shows. I like to test 10 times for a good score, but if you are trying not to lose to many turns, you can edit this to 5. (Don’t let sentimentality play a factor in giving a horse a bias: remember that there will ALWAYS be another like it).
And that is basicly all there is to it. No more grinding to breed for a 65 speed racehorse, or for an elusive gold strength stat for your pullers. You can start using this method at any point in your project. By using this method, you ensure that your end horses will have the hidden heart gene and furthermore you will enforce a sort of “natural selection” in which only the horses that have the traits to keep them from being rehomed will go on to reproduce. I hope that this idea of “survival of the fittest” will help you rapidly increase the competitiveness of your herd as it did in mine!
Sorry for the long post, but I feel like I really could have used this guide when i was a beginner/intermediate type player. Peace out and don’t forget to ask questions or add your own thoughts to this post!
