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I'll get this started then :) So with a foundation dam, that means we can only pick out 2g of the bootstrapping lines?


z Show Boost 8

So I choose this mare! The reason why I've chosen her is because she's ended up being a surprisingly good producer, and she's also more like a 3g/4g quality. Out of 4 foals, three are papered at PT 12 and consistent. All four foals are showing well too, and looks like they're going to be some quality show ponies. She herself, has been pretty stable with her show career sitting pretty happy in the middle and gaining points.

With the bootstrapping, my one goal is to have a very consistently strong show herd. It's in the baby stages at the moment, so hasn't progressed as much as I hoped as I hand breed these horses for lack of pasture space. I really want to get them up in the 13PT range, and beyond but so far I've just got them in the 12 zone. I don't really breed for colour, anything goes, but consistency is a must and they have to paper better or as good as their dams.

Main road block is that I've not had any colts past testing yet at all. I think I need to source out a better stallion to breed in to increase the breeding ability. The other main concern is space, but I'm working on extending stables with my daily bonus.

Hv boot n butt
So I am kinda glad you did this. I have not purposly bred this way till now but had been teetering on the edge and this made me take the plunge.
I have a 4g Nexus shud I am very proud of. Ammit started making closed genes Because Nexus got so out of hand and had so many inferior horses. Hv 4g Superstar nxx was the first Star papered stud in the game for Nexus. And his foals have been perfect. They show well for me and he passes on beautiful Nexus.

Hv 4g Superstar nxx
So I used him and one of my highest AFPT foundation mares. This will be an experiment of sorts for me as well. I am excited he papered A as well:)
My biggest hesitation has been that I have very limited pasture space and I rotate all my girls through. I also play 95% of my time on a phone. So that makes it hard to know who has not been bred and it's difficult to switch everyone into pastures.
I would love to have a separate big barn to keep my bootstrap foals in so they are easily followed.
Thanks for helping me take the plunge:)

2016314
I totally forgot about boot strapping til now :))
So went on a breeding spree and just got a Gold Papered mare!
This will be my first gold papered mare I have ever bred.
Also been getting some nice pt scores so will have to continue bootstrapping to get higher pt ponies so I have nice pt scored show ponies. :)
Please excuse the name, I will eventually name everything next month lol

This is the highest papered bootstrapped foal that I have bred. Additionally, she has w8, which I love. Her PT is not phenomenal but it's a start. :)


SS Ghost Wind

I acquired two of your stallions, including Signatory which is one of my favorite horses in the game! This next season I hope to use all 50 breedings on both of them. My bootstrapping program has not progressed much since I started because of lack of space. I have gotten my daily show bonus up to nearly 60k now, and I'm using it almost exclusively to buy barns. I'm hoping to see lots of blue papered fillies this next month to build up my mare herd. The fillies who are sired by Signatory will be bred to the other stallion when they're old enough, and vice versa. My main issue is obviously space. I'm thinking about cutting down my breeding herd because I already have so many horses. I seem to have no limits :)) I'm going to have to keep myself from keeping low-papered fillies from my regular herd to throw into bootstrapping just because they're pretty! I do kind of like the no-rules part of bootstrapping, though.

This is so fun!

I first joined HJ in February and was looking for a direction for my program to go. I knew I wanted to breed WB's in true to life colors. But I wasn't sure where to begin when looking through the options. I stumbled on the concept of "bootstrapping" and it made perfect sense! I could continue to build better and better show horses, in order to increase my income and eventually devote a part of my breeding operation to more of the "fun" stuff once I had a sustaining show pony business.

I decided to name the foals from each year's attempt with the same letter, starting at "A" and working my way down. That way it would be easier for me to see the progress I was making. My first round of foals did pretty well. Since I was just starting, I decided to use an A papered stallion instead of *Star to use with the foundation mares. I was shocked to find this beautiful colt in the bunch. Even more shocked when he passed BA, then SBA, then papered A himself!


II FB Archimedes

This year he sired some of his own foals, just to see how he would produce. I was over the moon to get him in my first attempt at Bootstrapping and I can't wait to see the progression of the program.

This most recent season I took advantage of pasturing mares and used a *Star papered stallion, got lots of gorgeous Blue and Red papered fillies! Too many in fact! I overflowed my bootstrapping barn for this season lol.

I really haven't come across any roadblocks yet, mostly because I am new to the game. I just love seeing how each year progresses. Next GY will be the first generation of crossing back my first fillies to their sire. That's when things will really get exciting! The only roadblock I have faced so far has been having the patience to wait for each generation! lol

so, this is my favorite boy :) *Even though i didnt breed him myself, but i do own him now. He isnt evenly bred either.. does he count?)


$MG3 Special Teeny HzKP 8

so im fairly new to the game (started the day before friday the 13th because of an add i saw on facebook lol) and when i first started i didnt really know what was going on, i.e i didnt know about even or eneven lines, bootstrapping, or how to really achieve a good foal from the foundation horses that i got.

so after browsing a bunch of horses that were in the auctions and that were for sale, i started to notice patterns in their family tree and i myself began to try and copy that; the horse that i listed above is my only stallion at the moment, (besides my foals) and so far he is AMAZING because he produces beautiful foals and, in my opinion, he himself is beautiful.

the two roadblocks that ive had would probably be because of money and lack of barns. (I have one main barn, but id really like one or two more for foals, breeders and showers)I've had one or two good foals that i have sold and that helped get my farm off the ground and in fact thats the only reason why i was able to get the stallion that i was talking about. and its a personal thing ya know, i see a foal/ horse with unique or cool coloring and i buy it, which isn't good for my bank account lol. i plan on hopefully being able to get A, star and red papered ice draft/cob foals with this boy, but i think that will take a LONG time.

here are a few of his beautiful babies :)

(at this time im just breeding for colors and patterns)


Married In Wedlock


Special Groaning BH


Wilted Petals


Vanilla Cola BH

KA Coming Up Sunshine

Not sure if he technically counts, because I don't own his sire. I did own his dam but sold her after the breeding season. Anyway, I bred this guy back in March, during my first breeding season after signing up in February. I had learned about bootstrapping, but didn't know I was technically doing it when I bred this guy. He's my absolute favorite horse I own because he has White M and tobiano, two of my favorite genes. Plus, he's small enough to breed ponies for my line. He'll be 3 next season and he's going into my pasture with a bunch of foundation mares, so I can actually start a bootstrapping line of my own. The only downside is that he's inconsistent, but I'll only be pairing him with consistent mares in hopes of fixing that.

I would say my favorite result of bootstrapping is the quick payoff. It would be impossible for me to start breeding Kit M from foundations right now. I was able to pick up the gene for my lines immediately. Now, I can quickly advance the quality of my horses. My bootstrapping line will focus on Kit M specifically, since it's easier to breed for my other favorite patterns (rabicano, sabino, etc) using foundations only.

My biggest roadblock right now is definitely space. I'm about $100k away from a basic upgrade, or a few IVs from a 60 stall barn. The basic upgrade is my true goal, but for now a big barn would help dramatically.

I've had a hard time going back and forth trying to pick my favorite bootstrapped horse. I have two fillies that I bred this year that have me completely smitten as they both have a bit of a back story to them. Neither of them are particularly impressive Stat-wise, but they are both important to me because of the back stories. In fact, one of them doesn't hold up to my personal standards even in a bootstrap line. She only papered Yellow and is Inconsistent, both of which are things I try to actively cull against. Yet I just can't get over her looks and the story that brought her to me. Instead of using my better judgement, I decided to follow my spurt of craziness and keep my Little Mania going.


Little Mania

Little Mania is the product of my Freaky Friday mare and my favorite sire in the game. When Cheers had run her contest for the barn, I commented that Little Bear (a Freaky Dreamer descendant), her sire, was my current favorite living in the game. Silver Black is the color that I obsessed over and decided that I was going to breed for in the beginning of the game, couple that with ice and I just can't get over how lovely the stallion looked. In that post, the current owner let me know that he was currently listed in the next day's auction. I was ecstatic and knew that I would fight tooth and nail to get him. Unfortunately life seemed to get into the way that Thursday and I completely missed the auction; a crazy day at work, foal watch on a mare that would surprise me two days later at noon, and general running around kept me away. I was disheartened when I realized that I had missed out on him, but a good friend in the game had known that I was eager to try and claim him for my own and had snatched him for me. I could not be any more grateful to her for that as I absolutely adore him.

With only a 25% chance of coming out with neither of her parent's E, I was surprised to find that I had ended up with a liver chestnut filly. I'm a bit of a sucker for redheads in real life and actively love the Livers on here as well. She came out with just about every gene from both of her parents and was just stunning. What makes her even more special to me is that she is one of a kind. There's not a single living horse in the game with her exact coloration, which to me is super neat. Outside of her looks and back story, there's nothing particularly impressive about her so I know I'm absolutely nuts. I'm hoping to cross her against my normal Bootstrap stud (an A papered Ice fellow) since I can't bring myself to alter her despite my own personal standards. He tends to bat above his weight (his first foal with me was an AGA colt that passed SBA and papered A) so I'm hoping together, I can end up with some pretty and functional show ponies.

I have a bit of a roadblock in my inability to cull horses that are too pretty for their own good, even when they are not good producers or up to my own personal standards. It is definitely holding me back a bit in my bootstrapping, but I love how quickly it can help me build up my show herd and raise PT.

I'm hoping to be able to take my bootstrap line into some crazy looking horses with fantasy genes and max PT. It's going to take quite some time for me to get there as I only have A studs currently, but I'm happy to take my time with it. I'm not going anywhere, I'm pretty well addicted to the game even though I've only been here since February.

I picked this gorgeous boy:


es 1867216

This guy is my first homebred Star stallion EVER so that was super exciting (even though he was gelded by BA - I hadn't even realized he was a star because he was BA tested before he was papered!). He's also got one of the highest PTs I've ever produced on my own (my highest is an 11.9 filly but she's not from a foundation dam so she had a bit of a boost that way). I just was so excited when I saw that Star paper for the first time in playing this game that I can't help but love him.

My goals for my bootstrapping program are multi layered really. My long term, big picture goal is to produce amazing show horses that will boost my nightly income. My short term goals include breaking the 12 PT mark (so close right now with an 11.9!), breeding my own home-bred Star stud (now done it twice, with the guy above and his half-brother! so this goal is ACCOMPLISHED!). My slightly longer term measurable goals are to get a high enough home-bred Star stallion that I can start using him to do my bootstrapping entirely in-house, and to eventually break the 13 PT and at some point the 14 PT barrier. I don't breed for colour in my bootstrapping herd though I'm always excited to see some of the awesome colours and patterns that come about because some of the high star studs I'm breeding to are so pretty!

My biggest obstacles for my bootstrapping right now is money and space. I am ALWAYS out of barn space and I really struggle to earn enough money each season to breed all my mares. Most of my mares aren't in my bootstrapping program to be honest, because I only started bootstrapping recently (thanks Dark Star for the introduction to such a fun way of playing!) and I can't bear to part with my even breeding lines lol. So I really struggle to get all my mares bred by the end of each season which frequently means my bootstrapping gets left for last, because it's more expensive to do (I pasture breed my even lines but because I don't have a high quality star stallion of my own, I use outside studs in the Bootstrapping group which are awesome, but cost more to breed to than pasture breeding). At the end of the day I keep every bootstrapped foal in my barns because they're all going to at least be good show prospects even if I don't breed them, but that means I need an ever increasing number of stalls for them which I just can't afford.

Keeping my head up and continuing to push forward with it though because it's such a fun way to breed and play the game!

This is DinaChill (Dinascar's old competition account) answer. We both do bootstrapping but DinaChill is just a bootstrap account.
This is my favorite of my bootstrap horses:-


DC BS2g1997263

I like that she is pretty and papered well but she is also small (I want to keep small here on this account). I am going to breed lots of different colors hopefully. Gelding the boys for show ponies where I can and hopefully in a couple of seasons speying the reds and possibly the blues as well to have a gold herd of mares. That's my aim. I also want to be on that leader board!
My main stumbling block at the moment is space. Barn space is an issue. I am selling most of my potential show horses to get IVs for barns. I know this is how it is to start with.
Also my 2 star stallions are lovely (they were your's) but they could both do with being smaller if I was being picky! But I am not - I will breed them to small exceptional cobs/sport ponies and breed the size down.
I also have a small string of cute stallions (from others) as a little sideline to public breed to make money as well.
Thanks DarkStar for this opportunity and for all you do :)

I have two, well three, lines I'm trying my hand at bootstrapping right now. First off is my cream and w8 line. I was lucky enough to get a star stud on another account that checked off every box on my list. I wasn't aiming for breeding non sooty cream or w8 on this account but I merged and I surely can't let him go to waste, he's just too awesome! I have plenty of random colored foundation mares from when I didn't know what direction I was going and from the merge to put him to, so he's definitely got a job. This is one of his first babies on this account, and I surely couldn't be more impressed. She's got a great pt, consistent, and nicely colored up.

WR2 Cake Walk

I started out in this game wanting Appaloosas to be my main focus. Since then liver and chocolate have taken my fancy, with all kinds of chrome so I'm working towards that goal with three A papered studs that carry DP, splash 1, tobiano, rabicano, and roan between the three, among other things, bred to my foundation mares. It's coming along pretty wonderfully, I think. I've started adding some kitM here and there as well because it's simply gorgeous on anything. I'm excited with my results so far and can't wait to see where I wind up. I'm working towards my basic upgrade so I can test my horses better and weed out the ones that don't make the cut. I've gotten excellent show ponies from these studs so far and some Fillies that are going to strengthen my lines when bred back to my studs. This is one of those girls.


WR2 Chastity f

My goals are to get my horses up there in the 12-13+ pt range and have simply beautiful horses that show well and make me more hbs. Barn space is my big issue right now. I have a hard time getting rid of any that are really really pretty so I have a bunch of horses, and not a bunch of room. That's why I'm working towards my basic upgrade, hopefully getting that will help out with barn and pasture space.

A Fine How Do You Do

My "lesson learned" horse. I didn't know yet that even breeding was a safer approach, I hadn't even come across the term yet. I was still taking "you should test every horse" as gospel. She has a lifetime spot in my show string, though, since she reminds me to slow down and check things before clicking buttons, and 'cause she's pretty. Pasture and barn space are a constant battle since I don't want to abandon my color lines, so I'm sort of "mini" bootstrapping within those.

NaF Why Golden Stars

I chose Why Golden Stars because she was a total surprise. She is out of a Yellow mare who at the time had a 30 day pasture bonus and by a Star boy of yours that I picked up at auction. Her dam only has a PT 7.60 and my filly ended up being 11.60 so she is a major improvement. I didn't realize at the time because I was pasture breeding all my Yellow mare that her dam was W1and the sire SB2, a not so safe cross but the filly ended with being a healthy Sb2.

I joined at the end of January this year and was just randomly breeding in the beginning. I started bootstrapping with a lower Star stallion in March and accidentally BAed most of the foals. I bought GMT tokens and unaltered the best of the foals (Blue and high PT Red). Right now I'm not running BA on any bootstrap foals even Blue/Star crosses. I'm hoping that once I breed the first batch of bootstrap fillies back to Star stallions that I can start testing them and get passing foals. Once that happens I intend to split my mares into different color herds (Appy and Liver/DP, and what ever doesn't fit elsewhere) and phase of the mares that carry W1 and W2 so that everyone can safely be put in the pasture together. I building up a herd of cheap Blue mares that will eventually replace the Yellow and Red girls (already started selling Yellows).

I am fairly to the game, just started playing on New Years Day. I am still trying to figure the exact focus of my program, but I think I want to focus on fantasy genes. This mare will be a foundation to my nexus program. I need to thank @Cheers for selling her to me and giving me a start to both a bootstrap and nexus program.

EL Toxicity NxUE

She is a favorite because she reminds me of a mare I had in real life of similar chestnut color.
My goals are high PT, consistency, and fun fantasy colors/patterns! I am trying to “focus” on watercolor, Nacre, nexus, and ice8 if that can be called focusing lol.
One of the biggest issues I have with getting my program going is space. I don’t have the pastures to be able to sort my mares and satisfy my organizational ocd...I guess the same can be said for my barns as well... I need more to sort and make it easier to look in a glance and tell who what and where etc. I also play a lot on my phone so sorting is a huge need for me. I would also love to acquire a Riding Horse Star stallion to use on foundations. Would love to find a star nexus, ice, or if there is one out there watercolor. I have some riding horses to unload to make space but there seems to be less demand for them so I am keeping my breeding very minimal at this point so I don’t overload the space I do have!

I joined a lot of chat rooms and read a lot of the forum topics before I really got involved to give myself the best chance to get a good program off the ground early. So I have a lot of PF, TNP, ExPerf, and ExPro horses to start my programs off well. I just need the barn/pasture space to organize and the stallion to get my bootstrap program actually started!

Im not looking for a prize either, just want to share my goals and this little lady.


Toxic Grace AZhXU

Toxic Grace is by a gen 4 stallion that goes back to my original Nexus stallion, Starry Knights and out of a PF mare. She has a decent AFPT after two foals with a 12.0 Gold papered filly to her name.

My long term Bootstrap goal is twofold: homozygous Nexus with an open Ice and/or other patterns and really really high PTs. I’m currently aiming for 13.0 but the eventual goal is to be competing with you, Dark Star, and others like High Five Acres for top PTs in the game.

I’m currently somewhat hampered by my best stallions not being much higher than gen 6 quality, but I’m hoping for that next leap to come soon. I’ve been picking up some straws from better stallions (non-fantasy) and plan to use them on some of my fantasy Gold fillies to try to boost my stallion quality.

I would have to chose this mare. I'm pretty excited to put her back to her sire next season. The reason for choosing her is because that breeding season I accidentally sent all of Imperial Russia's foals through BA where they inevitably got spayed. Or at least I had thought I sent them all through. This girl slipped through the cracks and did not get tested at all. When I found her and papered her, she ended up being *Gold!


RFA Russian Cider BS

With my bootstrapping line I'd like to get PT's of 12.5 or higher with nearly every foal (you know there's always going to be that one that prevents perfection!) in the next couple of breeding seasons. Given enough time, I'd like to break the 13PT barrier. I'd also like to breed more foals that reach the 1,000 point level. I've got one homebred 2G that's reached the mark and another knocking on the door.

My biggest roadblock is stall space. I've finally gotten my daily bonus over the one IV per day benchmark, but it's still pretty low for the number of stalls I need at the end of each season. I probably only bred about half to two-thirds of all my mares and still put about 140 foals on the ground. Pasture space is quickly becoming an issue as well, because my older 2G mares are starting to level off in less than ideal places but I don't have a separate storage area to put them in pasture so they aren't shown.

@RedDeeFarms this is the link to the original discussion which does explain what bootstrapping is.

http://hj2.huntandjump.com/forum/discussion/46667/bootstrapping-group/p1

EE Platinum Perfect
Platinum Perfect
She is my favorite so far from bootstrapping. Unfortunately, I made a boo-boo (I've only been playing since January) and this was my first attempt at bootstrapping using an A papered stallion and a Perfect Foundation mare. I accidentally sent ALL my first crop of bootstrap foals through BA and lost several - but this one hurt the most!
I was not expecting her to turn out such a lovely color (momma is solid black), the green eyes from the Champagne and the sabino 2 are just cherries on top!

My bootstrapping program is headed in several different directions at the moment - I'm just generally bootstrapping everything, trying to focus mostly on appys and lots of chrome/white patterns. I'm working doubly hard because my focus is riding horses, and there seems to be a shortage of them in general, as well as a lack of interest in buying. I've been blessed to be able to find a few light warmblood Star stallions that are throwing lighter foals for me.

I've also purchased multiple special genes (axiom, nacre, and watercolor) so I'm also bootstrapping those in a sense, getting the homozygous genes there before I start trying to bring up the quality and increase paper levels along with PT scores.

I'm finding my biggest issues seems to stem from low hbs. My horses are all considerably young; my second crop of bootstrap are still just foals. I've purchased hbs myself but they seem to spend too quickly. Between that and being short on stall space, unable to get the IVs to buy more barns, it's been hard. I'm not a patient person, so waiting it out for my horses to age has been difficult.

In a year or so, I would hope to see myself with a solid line of each of my genes that's consistently producing A/Star studs and Blue/Gold mares. Everything will be riding horse sized by then hopefully :) I would guess I'll start losing several of my foundations around that time which will be hard I'm sure - I'm already attached to several.

Thanks for holding a contest! The community seems to be really great on this game and I'm looking forward to getting to know people :)

2g U Lattes Xandra

I chose her because her dam is one of my favorites. Moon gave me her dam and she has been a dream for me. With this little filly of hers I want to have a KPGP bootstrap line. I will breed her back to her sire when she comes of age. She is inconsistent she passed BA. Then I turned her testing off.

My main thing that I struggle with bootstrapping is knowing if I get quality as well as color. I am not concentrating on color just yet and since my bootstrap line is still a fledgling I will keep any color. Eventually I would like to go with True buckskin as my color to breed for.

Barn space seems to be my main problem right now. I would love to have 2 separate barns just to put my bootstrap horses in that way my horses don't get mixed up as easily.

Thank you for holding this contest.

Bumping this up so people can find it :)

Sorry, didn’t realize it was closed. Hope things settle down for you soon!

@ Dark Star this was an amazing idea!

Oh my goodness! Hope everyone is ok. Stay safe!

Hey no worries you stay safe.