HGG Community Forums

So....

First, I totally sympathize. It’s frustrating to watch a barn full of show ponies that don’t seem to be making any headway at making your show bonus bigger. I promise that showing is really a waiting game, not a quick fix proposition!

So if you’re actually talking about literal foals (horses less than a season old) showing is literally a coin flip for them. They can’t train yet and there are only two horses in level 1L classes, so winning is totally luck based and has nothing to do with Ability.

PT mostly indicates how many years a horse will train for. Higher PT means a horse will train longer but not necessarily that it will do any better at the lower levels than any other horse. Horses with a very low PT (4.0 and under) will generally not advance past level 1L before “Levelling Off” and not training further up the levels.

As you advance up the levels, the number of horses in a given class and the rewards for doing well in a class will both increase. Most horses will have varied performance as they continue to train and move up the levels. The levels run from 1 to 8, and within each of those levels there are Local, Regional, National and World divisions, so 1L is the lowest level overall, and 8W is the highest level over all. You will run through all 4 divisions at level 1 before you start level 2.

Where your horses really start to earn their stripes is when they level off, and once horses level off some players will evaluate their performance and cull poor performers.

Horses will level off at roughly the age of their PT and will basically stop training when they do (they still will add a small fraction of a point to their show score each week, but it’s a negligible gain). Horses that level off at the top of whatever class they are showing in will make lots of hbs and points for you. Horses that level off in last place will not. Horses that level off in the middle of a class will still do nicely for you, but they won’t make the large gains of a horse at the top of their class. Some people will cull horses that level off in last place in their class. Others will stop showing these horses but keep them to keep the show bonus contribution. Some of us never bother to look and keep everything until they age out.

Remember that some of your horses will level off in a local division of their level, but it may be level 6 or 7 or 8L, which has much better rewards and odds than level 1L!

I hope this helps. If I can offer any more information please ask!

Most of them seem to have phases where they do well for a few shows because they’re at the top of that class, and then they train up to the next level but they’re at the bottom of that level for a few weeks! That’s pretty normal...as long as they level out in a good spot you’re in high cotton!