HGG Community Forums

Show ponies don't really come into their own until they have finished training and leveled off. Unfortunately there really isn't any way to tell which horse will level off in a good stop to get lots of points, or a bad spot where they will end up dead last every show and earn no points.

Horses don't level off until their age is around what their PT is. This is a rough way of gauging what horses might be leveling off, it's not a set in stone thing. Once they have leveled off you can go through them and cull the low point horses that leveled off in a bad spot.

Now, if you are looking at foals I would cull the lowest PT ones. The higher PT ones still might not level off in a good spot, but if they do, they will earn you more points than the lower PT'ed foals will. All things being the same.

Additionally, you really can't tell who is going to be a good shower until they level off. A horse may show poorly the entire time it is leveling up, then finish in an amazing spot and rake in the points for years. Or it may show well the whole time it is leveling up and finish off in a really bad spot and never earn another point. If the second type of horse earned enough you can get by with hanging on to them and just not showing them anymore. And the first type of horse? Well, would it hurt to get rid of that horse when it was 3 or 4 because it wasn't showing well?

I had a band of Great Show Horse mares that I used as embryo transfer mares when I bred from eggs. Otherwise they hung out in a barn and earned me points, but it was nice to have some intact mares available to me for ET that weren't in my breeding program otherwise. Those girls did pretty well and had some high point totals!

I personally culled any foal with a PT below 10 and kept everything else to be a show horse. If you do that and still don't have room, you could go up to a PT of 10.5 with your current crop of foals...but unless you are breeding a lot of 10+ foals every season I wouldn't do that long term!

I only used the Great Show Horse HH to make ET mares once I had an established herd going. I also had such a large show herd that I basically never looked at a show pony once it had been through the culling and naming process as a foal/youngster (depending on how far behind I was lagging on naming some of them didn't get thrown In show barns til they were 3 or 4!). I never culled them on points earned or age or anything until I did my major stock distribution a few months ago...and I've now started back from scratch buying show ponies as high PT foals...my new herd should just be coming into high Show Bonus earning territory as I am ready to restart my breeding program this winter.

Thanks for your help guys! I think I've got a much better idea of which ones to keep now :)