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I don't think there's anything official. It depends on the player. I've done both, but now I breed Experfs to Experfs and leave it at that, just because I'd like to get as much as I can if I sell the foals, and, like you said, a lot of players value even gens over even papers (some can't paper). I like to breed both even gens and even papers, but I have a little of everything.

I thought that Ammit once said that ExP horses are essentially the same as 2nd gens, but since I can't find the quote, I certainly don't want to attribute it to her unconditionally.

Thanks for the input, DevilsParadise and Windigo!

Yes, I have a bootstrap line, too. I was just very curious about how an ExPer/Pro truly stacks up against a good 2nd gen, and if I'm doing my stock a long term disservice by my breeding strategy.

I like the way you define even and symmetrical.

Ok, so I do things a bit differently than others, and have gotten to the point where I am more likely to keep horses and get all the daily bonus instead, but here we go.
For my (Even breeding) lines, I use a bit of both strategies listed above. I also try to get it so breeding advice will snip the vast majority of the foals.
I start out with a mix of different quality mares with a mixture of perfect foundation and expo studs, and just randomly breed them. Funny enough, my perfect foundation keep throwing blue fillies with expro mares with my expo studs are lucky to get one or two with the same mares.
Now after this I breed all the foals by gen together, but if one is just too stunning but doesn't paper high enough I put it back a generation and it hangs out with like horses.

My favorite breeding is bootstrap breeding though, so...

For my even lines, I match B/red foundies to each other, and C/yellow foundies - this gives the best chance of intact. Then for their foals, I match papers - so B/red second gens get paired with each other and A/Blue second gens get paired with each other. Sometimes I get a B/red from a B/red and as long as it passes breeding advice, it gets paired to other B/red second gens, sometimes from C/yellow and sometimes from B/red foundie parents.

That's just personal strategy for most intacts, though. I believe Ammit has said before that even breeding came about as a way to maximize intacts, and as long as the foal passes BA it's a good horse to breed (statistically, maybe not based on whether it got the gene you want).

Doesn't mean some players won't buy an SBA passed A papered foal from a B 2G and a Red foundie because it's got an assymetrical pedigree, but hey, more for the rest of us. :P Besides, if symmetrical pedigrees make you happy or make it easier for you to keep track of papering for intacts (one reason I do it with some lines), you do you! It's a game, after all, and it should be fun. :)

The symmetrical/even thing makes me a little crazy sometimes, I swear. I think I've been told five different versions of what's really 'the right' breeding practice now, and all were different. I finally decided that it all falls under "you can't please all the people all the time" and stopped worrying so much over it.

See, I was one who started out at the beginning of March with that old adage, "Breed your best to the best and hope for the best." I poked at the daily herd helper listlessly a few times before I got one I liked, and was honestly losing interest in the game when I finally got a champagne appy one. I made a bunch of mares and a couple studs and started trying to figure out how to get foals that passed testing. It didn't go so well. I'm pretty sure I don't have a single horse from that first month anymore.

I didn't even look at the forum until about the time we got our Freaky Fridays in April, so I didn't get the early tutoring many do. By then I had bought some breeding stock and a show pony from the auction, and from looking through there I had a vague idea of what I wanted to breed. Problem is, most of my mares were foundation and to get what I like, breeding evenly from foundation stock is pretty difficult unless you can throw a lot of cash at the gene mod lab, which I definitely can't do. I beat myself up about breeding (and buying!) so many uneven horses for a while, then I had an epiphany:

I can breed even/symmetrical/"right" horses to sell and breed shiny horses for me. ;)

Now I have several breeding lines... My beloved sabino pearl dun Birds that are doing even better than my wildest hopes, my appy watercolors I'm just getting started with, and my lines I'm breeding toward dun Kit M appys with pearl and/or DP. (Yes, really!) Besides the lines for me, I also have the ones I keep in the pasture and breed to sell so I can afford to breed the rest. :D

Yes, 90% of the foals I sell go straight to auction and then Poofytown, but hey... The ones I keep, I love, and in the last month I got my daily bonus from right around 4k to over 6k and had three foals I bred (though I did buy the eggs and straws!) land on the leaderboards, so I gotta be doing something right. ;;)

I can't help with the 'even' breeding because I really don't use it but since I joined at the end of Jan I've bred mainly by bootstrapping. I started off with just foundation boys then got a low Star. I used him for a season or 2 then I managed to get a high Star stallion (bred by Dark Star) at auction. I used him on every mare I could and saw a huge jump in PT and even managed to get some Gold/Star foals out of Yellow mares.
I'm continuing to bred my mares back to that stud and another Dark Star boy I found. I really don't BA those foals but I do hand snip most of the colts.
I also have a side herd of 'dangerous white' mares that are bred to a solid lower Star boy and I have been BAing all of those foals so not as many intact but a few manage to make it.
This season the first of the Gold fillies with be bred back to their father and I'm hoping that by August or Sept I'll be able to BA most of my new foals and get more to pass. As that happens I will remove the lowest papered mares from the breeding herd and either sell them or spay and show them.
I made the leaderboards in Years 56, 58, 59 and 60 (I managed to get 21 awards this past season mostly due to my 2 high Star boys).

It’s really just about what you need in your herd.

Need a ton of good show ponies quick? Bootstrap whatever mares you have to the very best high Star you can get access to. You’ll get next to nothing that stays intact but you will get lots of nice show ponies and the few you keep intact should be great breeders.

Want an easy to track pedigree and thus easy to track progress? Breed even by gen. You can breed even by gen with the benchmark method and get great increases in PT and paper too, but you will suffer mare lag and a fair number of snipped foals.

Want the highest possible number of intact foals? Breed even by paper. The danger here is stagnation of your lines (I think) and you definitely probably won’t see the big jumps in quality you’ll get with the benchmark or bootstrap methods, but that’s fine if what you need is breedable stock.

But most important, have fun!