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What an intellectual question, Waldgraf. I want to start off by saying welcome! After playing for a week, you appear to have a good grasp on the ebb and flow of HJ2. And yes, you can expect a lot of snipped foals. That is the way of the breeding game. You have your good foals and your bad foals, but they can all be shown. Now I'll get to your question.

Strategy 1: At the foundation level, PT score is not indicative of breeding quality. I can't recall the discussion or the exact explination - I do think @SandycreekFarm was the supplier of this information - but essentially the PT score is a number that indicators how many points a horse will have added to its show score when you train it. You don't see a relationship of PT score meaning good breeding quality until the higher generations (seventh or eighth). What is important is to watch the average foal PT score (also known as AFPT). AFPT is calculated by adding up the PT scores of a horse's foals and dividing by the number of foals. This a great indicator of the breeding ability of any stallion or mare and you want to see about a 0.4 increase per generation - this is a strict but obtainable goal.
9.9
2G 10.3
3G 10.7
4G 11.1
5G 11.6
6G and up 12 or higher

Strategy 2: Again, PT score is not necessarily an indicator of breeding quality. Breeding quality is most easily determined by papering stallions and mares, then breeding like qualities together. C/Yellow, B/Red, A/Blue, and Star*/Gold*. Though each paper level has a certain spectrum in and of itself: a high, mid, and low quality to a single paper level.

If you are looking to get great quality show horses, I would definitely opt for strategy 2 because the higher the PT score the better the horse will be as a show horse. They will earn points at an earlier age and train faster than a foundation horse. But I wouldn't expect many intact offspring if you are breeding too unevenly. The new testing system doesn't give much wiggle room for breeding uneven quality, such as a exceptional foundation to a regular create foundation.

If you are looking to build a breeding line, I would suggest investing in a basic upgrade such that you will be able to paper your horses. This gives a great step up in your game. You can purchase a basic membership with game money or real money. This will allow you to gauge the breeding quality of your horses and pair them accordingly for the best possible outcome of intact foals.

Here is an excellent example done by Ammit of the importance of breeding even quality together: A working example of uneven breeding and pasture bonuses.

I hope this helps. Feel free to ask more questions because this is a complex topic of discussion and there are multiple ways to accomplish breeding goals.

Remember too that higher PT isn't necessarily a better show horse, it's just that they will be able to train higher and show at higher levels, not necessarily good at it! Sometimes those lower PT horses can do very well! So starting with foundations and keeping those spayed/gelded foals can still get you some great horses as you work your way up to increasing quality through the generations!

I can't answer some of your other questions but papering is free if the horse has been altered so I usually do it anyway. But if a foal has been altered by breeding advice, their paper score is usually lower than their parents :)

So, you only know their breeding score if they're one of the Herd Helpers identified as such? I did create a couple of those - in hind sight, I probably should have noted them as such!

Awesome, thanks!

Oh thank you! I was able to hunt them all down!

Unfortunately, I don't have any rank specials, yet. However, I'm optimistic I will. I'll keep that link handy for future reference!

I have one quick follow up question. How long do stallion breeding straws last?

Thank you!

I just want to say I love this thread. These are some questions I've had but haven't posted.

Is there a way for individuals to "pin" posts for later use?

There is an outline of a star just to the left of the thread title. Click it and it turns yellow. It will put the thread in a list titled My Bookmarks along the right hand side of the screen when you are on the forum. I have DOZENS saved!

I think we are going to find perceptions on "even" breeding shifting now that we can paper mares at birth. You used to have to wait until a mare had three living foals to paper her. Now we don't have nearly as much guesswork in determining a mare's quality.

So prior to the change there was a big focus on breeding "even" in the game under the assumption that, for example. a 3rd gen mare and 3rd gen stallion have a good chance of being similar breeding quality and that provides a good chance of producing a baby that will pass testing intact. In reality though that 3rd gen mare could be yellow papered and your stallion could be A papered and you would have a big mismatch in breeding quality, resulting in mostly spayed and gelded babies. Now we can know for a fact what ability our mares are in relation to the stallions and we can find breeding matches accordingly. In this scenario knowing my mare is yellow and my stallion is A, it would be better to find a blue mare for my A 3rd gen stallion and a C stallion for my yellow 3rd gen mare.

So at this point I have decided I am not going to care what "Generation" a horse is. I will be breeding C stallions to yellow mares, B stallions to red mares, A stallions to blue mares, and *star stallions to *gold mares. Regardless of Generation.

Regarding a 3rd gen red mare vs a 2nd gen red mare: a red is a red no matter how many ancestors it has. All red mares fall into the same quality range and I would treat them the same in my breeding program.