HorseGeneticsGame User Guide

Yes! HorseGeneticsGame.com has always prided itself on making the game accessible to everyone. If you can afford to support the game it really helps cover our server costs, but we know not everyone can afford to. This is a game foremost about community and everyone who helps make this community a positive place will always be welcome.
Many advanced game features, like barns, and basic upgrades are available to purchase with our iv (investment voucher) system. You can convert your excess hbs (horsebucks) to ivs by selecting "Upgrades for HBs" in the navigation pane.
Some game items like diamond tokens, pastures, and premium upgrades are only available through a USD purchase. We use these to cover our server cost and pay our team a living wage. You can still access these items by making a forum post to see if someone will buy them for you in exchange for hbs.
- Expect to pay between 150,000 and 250,000 hbs for every 1 USD. The exact amount will vary between servers and current demand.
- If another member buys something for you send them the agreed upon hbs via the Pay Another User page. (Navigation >> Community >> Pay Another User) Payment is normally expect within 24 hours.

Account Creation

You are already here so you have created an account before, but there is some important information about account creation that is useful to know.
- You are allowed to have up to three unpaid accounts per server. The servers are Bluegrass (blue), Forest (green), and Mesa (red). You can have as many accounts with a premium upgrades as you wish.
- Create all of the accounts in your household using the same email address. If you used different emails by mistake make sure to update them by going to Member Home >> Account and Stable Management >> Manage Email Settings. You are allowed to have up to three unpaid accounts per server. You can have as many accounts with a premium upgrade as you wish.
- When you create a new account, you will pick three breed characteristics for your account. Breed characteristics change the appearance of your horses. The three you pick are permanently assigned to this account. You can purchase additional BC using diamond tokens or create a new account and make different selections.

New Account Strategy

New accounts are given everything they need for a strong start. You are given starting income and pointed show horses, and by doing your achievement tasks you will have plenty of hbs. Below are the most important tips for your new account:
- Do your Achievement Tasks The Achievement Tasks will walk you through the basic steps for starting up your account. They will also award you with tons of hbs and stall space. Work on completing these as your first priority.
- Pointed Creates If horses you own have less than 60,000 points combined, and all horses you have ever created have less than 100,000 points combined you will be able to make pointed creates. That means you can sell up to 40,000 points to other players. A good strategy is to sell horses created with less than 200 points to make space for higher pointed horses. Sell these horses for their "Current Lifetime Payout" which can be found by opening that horse's page.
- Basic Upgrade The first thing you should invest in is an upgrade. You can save your hbs and purchase one directly with USD by going to Navigation >> Upgrade >> Buy Upgrades, or you can use your hbs and purchase it with ivs ( Navigation >> Upgrade >> Upgrades for HBs). This will unlock bulk management, more testing options, increase your weekly income and generally improve the outlook of your stable.
  - For those able to spend USD, a great option is to purchase the Welcome Pack. You will receive a 3 month Basic Upgrade, 25,000 hbs, and a 10 acre pasture for $1.99 USD. That is 90% off the regular price! Look for the offer in the side menu bars in bright orange letters, or the bottom of the page for mobile.
- Increase Your Stall Space You need stalls, lots of them, to hold all those show horses you will want for more game income. Expect to own many thousands of show horses in the future. When you can afford to purchase more barns to house your horses. You can save your hbs and purchase barns directly with USD by going to Navigation >> Upgrade >> Buy Upgrades, or you can use your hbs and purchase it with ivs ( Navigation >> Upgrade >> Upgrades for HBs).

Creating Goals

HorseGeneticsGame.com was created for busy adults. You won't find any grooming, fussy training options, or stall cleaning here. This is a slow roll game with long term goals designed to be played over months and years. Think of HGG as a fun long term project to have in the back burner.
Earn Lots of Hbs Many members set a daily income goal. Reaching 10,000 hbs in daily bonus is a pretty easy task, but can you reach 100,000? A million? The more you earn the more you can do in the game, so a daily income goal is a smart goal to set.
- New Member Creates New members can create foundation horses with points already attached to them. (Navigation >> My Stable >> Create A Horse) These are a limited resource so be sure to hold onto these pointed horses. They are vital in getting a starter income.
- Earn Points The slowest but most effective way to grow your daily bonus is to have as many show horses as possible. Breed high ability foals, and train them up until they are winning lots of points in shows. It can take up to a real life year for these foals to really start making you a large amount of income, but as long as you keep growing your show horse numbers your income goals are a guaranteed success.
- Buy Points You can purchase horses that already have points from other players. Search for them under Navigation >> Community >> Search Horses. Older horses tend to have more points but be aware horses can start dying of old age when they turn 18.
Breed Exceptional Horses What's your favorite color? You can breed a horse that shade at HorseGeneticGame.com! It only makes sense that many of our members focus on making beautiful lines, exploring rare genetics, and creating powerful show horses. Horses here have both color and ability genetics, so a common goal is to take some foundation horses and try to reach the highest possible breeding ability with their descendants. What color will you breed for?
Master the Leaderboard Once you truly understand how to create exceptional breeding lines you will be able to claim your spot on one of our any dozen leaderboards. The leaderboards represent the highest escilion of equine talent and player know how, and many of our members strive to win the coveted leaderboard prizes.
Create Together HGG is a community game first and foremost. The futurity system rewards players for breeding to stallions owned by other players, and players can even share their breeds to develop amazing lines by working together. While it is never required to work with other players, we think the engaging with the community creates the most rewarding experience.

All About Testing Your Horses

Why should I test my horses?

Testing gives you information about the genetics and quality of your horses. The higher the showing and breeding quality of your stock, the higher level of shows they will qualify for and the more money they can win you. By utilizing testing you can prevent wasting your time with horses that won’t meet your goals.

While some of the tests might seem expensive, it's actually cheaper to just run the test than to spend a bunch of money and stall space on a horse who turns out to be a dud.

Available Tests

Breeding Advice (BA)
- This test compares the foal’s breeding ability to the breeding ability of the sire and dam. If the foal is a nice result for the cross it will pass. Passing foals might be a bit worse, about as good as, or superior to their parents.
  
  This test is available to all players and is free.
- Horses that fail Breeding Advice (BA) are automatically spayed or gelded.
Strict Breeding Advice (SBA)
- Strict Breeding Advice (SBA) compares the foal to the breeding ability of the sire and dam. If it is worse than either the sire OR the dam the foal will fail the test. This means if you breed a stallion and mare with different breeding abilities you have an increased chance of having altered foals.
  
  SBA is available, for free, to players with a Premium Upgrade.
- Horses that fail Strict Breeding Advice (SBA) are automatically spayed or gelded.
Breeding Inspection (Papering)
- While Breeding Advice tells you how your horse compares to its parents, Breeding Inspection tells you, in absolute terms, the quality of breeder your horse is.
- Stallion Papers
  - Showable Only: This horse should only ever be used for showing. Consider it a definite fail as far as breeding stock is concerned.
  - C: This represents basic/foundation level breeding ability. Perfect quality foundation stallions are C-papered.
  - B: Exceptional foundations and many 2nd generation stallions are B-papered.
  - A: These are sometimes bred in the 2nd generation, and often in the 3rd.
  - *Star: These can start appearing in the 4th generation.
  - **Star: The highest possible natural paper level.
  - ***Star: Cap quality stallions given a 5% boost will hit 3 stars.
  - ****Star: The top paper level possible to obtain, available only on double boosted over cap horses. See the “Understanding The Leaderboards” section of the FAQ for a full run down on boosting.
- Mare Papers
  - Failed: The mare equivalent of a stallion's "Showable Only" result. This mare has no place breeding
  - Yellow: This represents basic/foundation level breeding ability.
  - Red: Exceptional foundations and many 2nd generation mares are Red-papered.
  - Blue: These are sometimes bred in the 2nd generation, and often in the 3rd.
  - *Gold: These can start appearing in the 4th generation.
  - **Gold: The highest possible natural paper level.
  - ***Gold: Cap quality mare given a 5% boost will hit 3 stars.
  - ****Gold: The top paper level possible to obtain, available only on double boosted over cap horses. See the “Understanding The Leaderboards” section of the FAQ for a full run down on boosting.
Comparison Testing
- Comparison testing allows players with an upgrade to compare a horse to its same gendered parent, or to another horse they own of the same gender. This can give you important information about the overall quality of your stock, and which potential breeders to focus on.
  
  Comparison testing is available for 8,000 hbs for players with a basic upgrade, or 4,000 hbs for players with a premium upgrade. While this price seems high it is far cheaper to comparison test than breed a bunch of foals to figure out which horse is superior.
  
  See the “Limited Eras and Primary Eras” section of the FAQ found under “Understanding The Leaderboards” for a full run down of comparison testing strategies.
- Comparison Testing will return one of the following results:
  - ‘Worse Than’ which means just that; Horse A will be a worse breeder than horse B
  - ‘About As Good As’ (AGA) which means that horse A may have the same ability as horse B. It could be a little bit better or worse, but in general the horses will have similar breeding abilities.
  - ‘Superior To’ means that horse A is a much better breeding horse than horse B.
Performance Testing (PT)
- Performance Testing will give you a general idea about how well and how long your horse will perform in shows. Lower scores do not mean that a horse will be a bad show horse, only that they may not make it to the higher levels of showing, the elite classes like Grand Prix. They can still make you money even in their lower level classes, points are points no matter where they are earned.
  
  PT scores are indicative of how many training points a horse will receive with each training session and how long they will train for before leveling off.
- Horses will only receive those training points if they are trained. Members with free accounts need to remember to train each horse every week. Click the carrot icon in the barn, next to the horse name.
- PT test will also tell you how consistent your horse is. This is a measure of how they perform in shows. Are they steady competitors who show up the same week to week or do they have wild swings between good and bad days? The PT test results will tell you if a horse is Consistent, Inconsistent, or Very Inconsistent.
  
  If you pay to change a horse's consistency level in the genetics lab you will need to run the PT test again, since consistency quite often (but not always) affects PT scores.
- Once tested your horse will also be assigned to a showing circuit:
  - Silver Circuit horses tend to level off (stop training) in level 7 (A Level) classes.
  - Gold Circuit horses tend to level off at level 8 (Grand Prix).
  - Finally Platinum Circuit horses tend to level off at level 9 (Grand Prix Elite). Platinum Circuit horses tend to have three and four star parents.
- As soon as a horse is spayed or gelded they begin to earn extra training points with every training session. This gives them the potential to be better show horses, so they earn more show points, which adds to your daily show bonus. You will not see an actual change in the PT score of a spayed or gelded horse. They will, however, earn the extra points.
Genetic Testing
- Your horse's color will read as “Unknown” until you Gene Test it. Genetic testing will reveal the phenotype (color name) and genotype (complete genetic information) for your horse. If a gene has two copies of the wild type (no mutation) it will not show on the test results. You can check “Show All” to see the complete list of all genes in the game.
Unaltering and Maxing
- If a foal is altered by testing, or by accident and you wish them to be un-altered you can do this via the GMT lab. On your horse’s page click the Control Panel tab. Select the Gene Mod Lab link. After clicking Modify This Horse, scroll down to the bottom of the page to the Gender section. Here you can unalter a horse for 1 GMT.
- If a horse is not to your quality standards but you need it to be, the Max Out Ability option is available in the Control Panel. Maxing a horse will make them the best possible showing and breeding quality that is producible by its parents. This does not impact consistency. Maxing costs 5 GMTs for older ears and 50IVs for limited eras.
- Please note that maxing and boosting do different jobs. The “Understanding The Leaderboards” section of the FAQ has a full rundown on boosting.

Community

How Can I Connect With Other Members?

We have a great community of users here at HorseGeneticsGame.com, and many ways to connect with other players.
- The Forum: The forum is broken into sections. Section links are on the right, or you can click “All Discussions” to see everything at once. Some of the categories and links that can be found on the forum include:
  - New member introductions (stop by and say Hi!)
  - Breeding ads and offers
  - Sales and member run auctions
  - Shared Herd Helpers
  - Game news and announcements
  - Help with the game
  - Fun member run contests, with great prizes
  - Your Private Message (PM) inbox. This is where you’ll find any messages that are sent directly to you. You can send a message from this page, or from a user’s profile page.
  - Your forum profile page link. This is where you can find account editing options, your activity log, and a list of who is currently online. It’s a great place to find topics you’ve started or commented on, or to change your profile picture.
- Buddy Chat: Accessed from the Forum page, Buddy chats are chat rooms created and run by upgraded members for private sales and/or breeding opportunities between friends
  - You can request membership in private chat rooms that are dedicated to a specific subject like coat colors, or specific genes, and more.
  - There are some chat rooms that upgraded members have made available for anyone to wander in and ask questions, or simply gab with other members who have similar interests, without needing to request membership.
  - In order to create or add people to a chat room you must have an upgraded account, but any member can participate.
- Search users:If you know a players username (usually the same as the stable, but not always!) you can check out their public barn pages by using this tab to search for that user and any associated accounts.

Sharing photos on our forum

Where to host your photos
- Due to a combination of cost and security issues you can not directly upload your images to our forum. You will need to upload them somewhere else first and then you can share them to our forum.
- Most Recommended - Postimages (postimages.org)
  Account not required, and free option allows you to rescale images on upload. Use the provided "Direct link" field to quickly grab the image url.
- ImgBB (imgbb.com)
  Free uploads and can use the provided "Full image (linked) HTML" code to link on the forum.
- Imgur (imgur.com)
  No account required for single uploads. Accounts are free. Most commonly used by our members. Slightly more work to get the image URL.
How to embed your photos
- If you want your image to show directly on the forum you will need to embed it using code. Image URLs always end in an image file type like .jpg, .gif or .png. If you see no ending file name or a type like .html or .php you have a website URL instead. You can not use a website URL to directly embed an image. This is the number one mistake players make trying to embed an image.
- How to get the image URL from a webpage.
  - Right-click the image: On most browsers, right-click the image and choose an option like "Copy image address" or "Copy image link".
  - Open in a new tab: Right-click the image and select "Open image in new tab." Then, copy the URL directly from the address bar.
  - Drag and drop: Click and drag the image to your browser's address bar.
- To embed the image go to the forum post and click on the icon of the landscape painting. This will insert the following code into your post:
  
  <img src="" />
  
  Place your image URL between the "s, and you are done. If the image does not show make 100% sure you have an image URL and not a website URL.
- Common problems:
  - Our forum uses html not markdown or BBcode. If it looks like "[img]" with square brackets that is BBcode and will not work. You need the HTML version instead
  - If everything looks right with your code but the image still does not show, make sure you are the image url and not the website url
  - If you really can not make it work just copy and paste the URL without any code at all. The forum will automatically make it clickable for you. It is better to do less and have a clickable link than have broken image code.
What If there are conflicts among players?
- There are steps you can take to address in game issues with other players. If you simply can't get along, go ahead and block that player. You will be asked to briefly describe the problem and what, if any steps you have taken to remedy the situation. You can block another member by going to the My Blocked Member list on the right navigation bar on the main stable page.
- If you are being continuously harassed through means out of game control, contact an Admin via forum message and be prepared to offer up solid evidence of the harassment. Bullying is not tolerated on this game for any reason.

Basic Buying & Selling

The 2500 HB Line

HB is the abbreviation for the currency used in HorseGeneticsGame.com.
For the most part, horses are worth the create price of 2500 HBs because:
- Anyone make a new horse on the Create A Horse page and, for 2500 HBs, get a basic foundation horse in just about any color
- Herd Helpers, even colorful ones with interesting patterns, are extremely common, and vary from day to day.
- For 2500 HBs, anyone can buy a perfect foundation horse from the Foundation Rescue, which comes with a guarantee that the horse is an excellent breeding animal and an excellent show horse all in one.

General buying and selling information

Many new players like to believe that the secret to financial success on HorseGeneticsGame.com is in buying and selling horses, but that strategy is seldom successful.
- While there are horses worth more than 2500 HBs in the game, the cost of developing the lines to produce those horses requires experience and cash that most players will need time to earn
- Your best bet for earning extra cash is in the barn with your hardworking show horses
It is VERY hard to predict the sales market on HorseGeneticsGame.com.
- There are so many possible combinations of genes on HorseGeneticsGame.com it would be impossible to predict what the next trend will be
- Every day someone comes up with a new combination of colors that everyone, suddenly “must have”.
- New genes, both realistic and fantasy, are regularly being added to the game
- New players, with new likes and dislikes, join everyday. Those players are from all over the world, and have unique and diverse preferences

Public and Private sales

Selling horses between accounts owned by the same player is prohibited unless BOTH accounts have a Premium upgrade.
Horses posted for public sale may NOT have any rules or restrictions on who may purchase them, or or what can or should be done with the horse after the sale.
Private sales are restricted to Private chat rooms.
Auctions by private bidding (via Private Message, or other off game route) are not allowed.

Buying and Selling Rank Specials

Upon occasion you may have the good luck to get, or get a share in, a Rank Special (RS) horse from a Herd Helper (see the Herd Helpers section). What makes these horses special are their rare genes, or combinations of genes, and the fact that they are often exceptional breeding animals.
- Rank Specials are frequently worth more than 2500 HBs, but:
  - Not every Rank Special will work for every players herd. Someone who really wants a Freaky Friday RS, may not be interested in a Wet and Wild RS.
  - Basic supply and demand. There is no set pattern for the availablity of Rank Special horses. Except for the Freaky Friday RS (which is available every Friday the 13th), there is no way to predict how often one type may be available.
  - While all Rank Specials are the equivialent of a Perfect Foundation horse, some can be Exceptional Producers or Exceptionally Perfect, which are likely to be more desirable.
  - Knowing the market value of individual Rank Specials comes with practice and experience.
The best way to determine the value of a Rank Special is to visit the forum or the Facebook page and ask other players. You might find a player who would be willing to buy your horse, or find someone who has already put out a Wanted ad for that type of horse.
You can also use the Search feature to see if there are any similar Rank Special horses currently for sale, and compare the prices.
- Tip: use the specific name of the Rank Special, like Dark Chocolate or All Washed Up in the tattoo search bar to find them.
Herd Helpers are 'Ranked' by how commonly the colors and combination of colors occur in the game.
- Rank 1 is usually basic bay, black, or chestnut.
- Rank 3 can include combinations like Silver Buckskin or traits such as Top Notch Producers.
- Rank 5 has combinations that are even more rare, like Homozygous Champagne and Splash or Exceptionally Perfect.
- The most rare combinations you can get from a Herd Helper are the Rank Specials. There are even some that are IMPOSSIBLE in real life!

Rare Genes

Very few genes are rare enough to add extra value to a horses sale price. The longer a gene has been available, the less value it has. The rarest genes, the limited edition fantasy colors, are only available for in game purchase by players who own a license for that specific gene. The majority of these genes require an original purchase with real money, and are only occasionally available for sale to the public.
- Anyone may own spayed or gelded horses of any color.

The Market Decides

If you're really not sure what your horse might be worth you can enter it into the public auction. The auction guarantees you a minimum price of 2500 HBs.
- If the horse does not qualify for rescue, and no one bids on it in the auction it will be purchased by the HGG Auction Bidder and removed from the game.
Running your own auction on a forum thread can be very worthwhile to learn the going rate for various types and colors of horses. If you do decide to run an auction on the forum there are some things you should know:
- All bids MUST be publicly listed in the forum auction thread; taking private bids via private message is prohibited.
- You should include a definite ending date and time for the auction.
- There are some players who, for whatever reason, do not participate in the forum and will not see that your horse is available. Those same players may, however, see the public sales boards, or visit the public auction house.

Understanding The Leaderboards

Breeder Clubs

Top Producing Stallion and Mare Stallions and mares are ranked on this board based on their hidden "foal score". The foal score is calculated using a combination of the stallion or mares hidden breeding ability and the combined showing and breeding ability of their best foals. In the case of a tie the younger horse will always place higher than the older horse. If there is still a tie a hidden random number is used to break the tie.

The hidden foal score is the same number used for the "Best Producing" sort in the search. That means only leaderboard qualified sires and dams can be sorted using that feature.
- Qualifying Stallions must have 10 living, unboosted foals, of the same era as them. At least one of these foals must be two years of age or younger. Only his 10 best foals count towards his foal score.
  
  Mares must have 3 living, unboosted foals, of the same era as them. At least one of these foals must be two years of age or younger. Only her 4 best foals count towards her foal score.
- Strategy The most important part of mastering this leaderboard is having the highest possible ability breeding stock. For most boards that means using ***star/***gold and ****star/****gold ranked horses. When in doubt, inspect the board you are interested in and check out the top producers. Who is winning? If they are **** quality you will need **** horses to beat them.
  
  Once you have stock that is high enough ability you will want to focus on creating 10 perfect foals for stallions or 4 perfect foals for mares. A perfect foal has the highest possible showing and breeding ability that horse can produce. One way to achieve this is using the "Max Out Ability" ability feature located at Horse Page >> Control Panel >> Max Out Ability. The feature makes a foal have the highest showing and breeding ability it's parents can possibly produce.
  
  Maxing is expensive though and far from the the only way to get your perfect foals. Using embryo transfer on surrogate mares with 30 day pasture bonus will result in naturally high ability foals. It takes approximately 40 foals born this way for a stallion to reach his 10 perfect foals, and approximately 16 foals born this way for mares to have 4 perfect foals.
  
  You can also obtain these foals by brute force using pasture breeding to produce a few hundred foals. It may take several seasons but eventually you can obtain enough perfect foals this way. The pasture method is only recommended for stallions.
Highest PT This straightforward board simply ranks foals by their PT score. To qualify for this board a foal must be under two years of age and PT tested. Ties are broken by a hidden random number.
Circuit High Point The Silver, Gold and Platinum Circuit High Point categories are based on show points won for that season. Horses are sorted into their respective categories based on their hidden showing scores. You can see what circuit your horse qualifies for by viewing their Performance Test results on their page. Ties are broken by id number, the higher number/younger horse places first
- Strategy The goal here is to get as many points from show results as possible. The horses that make the most points in a season tend to be leveled off in training, and regularly placing first in shows. World grade shows payout the most points so leaderboard winners in these circuits tend to have leveled off in the world category. Winning the circuits is mostly a numbers game. The more leveled off show horses you have, the more likely you are to have one that happens to be showing in the right spot.
  
  For the best odds, make sure your horses are shown the maximum number of times possible before awards go out on the 28th.

Futurity

Rules for Stallions and Foals
- To qualify for the futurity a stallion must have at least 10 offspring bred and owned by players other than the owner of the stallion.
  - Offspring can not be owned or bred by anyone who has ever owned the stallion
  - It is against the rules to use your own secondary account to qualify your stallion. It must be another player.
  - If you accidentally qualify your own stallion, sell the stud to your secondary account and back again to remove those foals from the futurity.
- Those offspring must be the same era as the stallion, and must be five years of age or less.
- The total lifetime number of points won by the top ten offspring of each qualified stallion count towards his futurity standings.
- The number shown next to the stallion name is the sum of the lifetime points earned by his top 10 offspring.
- Stallions do not need to be entered in era clubs to qualify for the futurity.
Winning Strategies Futurity standings are based on lifetime points. The foals that will win the most lifetime points are normally the ones with the highest PT. That means breeding to the stallion with the highest breeding ability possible will make you most likely to win prizes in the Futurity.

There is no need to perfectly match the era of the stallion. As long as your mare is the same era or a higher era than the stallion her foals will be eligible for the futurity. Having high quality mares for futurity breeding is a great reason to focus on getting **gold mares from recent eras in your herd. The higher quality your recent era herd is the more opportunities you will have for the futurity and in the era clubs. Era 0 high quality horses are a dime a dozen, but recent era high quality horses are precious resources.

Best of Breeds

Best Performing Every night the Best Performing breed list is updated. The game looks at all breeds other than ones labeled "National" or "University". The best 25 horses of that breed, around age 13, are used to calculate which breeds have been performing the best in shows over their lifetime.
Prestige Points and Titles If your horse places on the Best Performers list they will earn prestige points based on their rank. By accumulating prestige points your breed will earn prestige titles. With a single prestige point your breed becomes "Locally Known." By earning more prestige points that can increase to Regionally Noted, Nationally Regarded, Internationally Respected, Globally Renowned, Legendary Lineage and finally Immortal Lineage. Immortal Lineage lines will be permanently enshrined in a hall of fame with all breeders who officially worked on that breed getting recognition.

In real life breeds rise and fall in popularity over time. To reflect this breeds with more than one prestige point, will loose one point at the end of each season. Once your breed has at least 1 prestige point, it will never drop back down to zero.
Strategy Breed high PT horses, using *** stock whenever possible, and show them aggressively throughout their lifetime. **** stock is even better but not a requirement. This is a numbers game. The more high PT show horses you have in the low teens age range, the more likely you breed will do well.

This board is owner agnostic. That means you can share breeds with other players to reduce the barn space you need. You may also be able to access higher quality stock by sharing a breed with a player who has a strong ***/**** herd.

Limited Eras and Primary Eras

What is a limited era? Every six months a new era begins in the game. An era divides all the horses in the game up into peer groups. It's no fun trying to compete a new line of horses that is 3 seasons old against one that has been around for 3 years. Eras allow you stand on equal footing with other players in the game, no matter how much longer they have played or how much bigger they might be.
- Special Rules for Limited Eras Boosting is of no use here. When you boost a horse it's era drops by one. That era penalty is severe enough that no boosted line will ever be able to compete with unboosted horses in a limited or primary era. These three eras are a safe bastion away from boosted competition.
  
  Ability Maxing (Horse Page >> Control Panel >> Max Out Ability) can be heavily utilized in limited era competition, but is not necessary. See the notes on strategy in the "Breeder Clubs" section of this FAQ. Normally Ability Maxing costs 5 GMTs, but because GMTs can be won on the leaderboard, and some large accounts have hundreds of them, Maxing costs 50 IVs for all limited eras. The IV charge means all accounts must pay for their maxing directly, and not use leaderboard winnings to fund it.
  
  A limited era becomes the "Primary" era after 1 year (12 breeding seasons). That is how long it takes to breed normal foundation creates to cap breeding ability. Once cap is reached there is no tactical advantage to using maxing so there is no reason not to allow GMT use. Once cap is achieved, the price for Ability Maxing does not change, but the currency used does. Instead of 50 IVs the cost becomes 5 GMTs(worth 50 VIs).
Your Ticket to Winning Big The players who win the most on the leaderboards have fully learned the value of recent era horses. Winning lots on the leaderboards requires boosted *** or **** quality stock. Every time you boost a line its era drops by one. That means over time all lines will degrade to Era 0, but there are a huge number of higher era breeder clubs and futurities with very limited competition. If you can obtain *** or **** stock at very high eras you unlock the ability to compete in all of these leaderboards and futrities.

High era, high ability stock, is pure gold when it comes to finding your place on the leaderboard. It can not be stated enough how much these horses can open up the leaderboard to you.
Strategy Start with foundations of perfect breeding ability, or your line will start from behind. Use rank special foundations which are guaranteed to be perfect breeding ability, or buy your foundations from the foundation rescue which will also be perfect ability. If you do accidently start with less than perfect foundation don't despair. The possible ability gain shrinks each generation, so even if you are little behind at first you can eventually catch back up to the leaders.

The strategy for limited boards is the same as any other, except instead of needing boosted horses to win, the highest possible ability moves forward with each generation. To win in the era race, you need to be breeding lines that have perfect ability each generation.

The first way to do this is with Ability Maxing (Horse Page >> Control Panel >> Max Out Ability). If you max the ability of every horse in the pedigree, you will be guaranteed to keep up with the era leaders and win awards. Ability Maxing can also be used to make perfect foundations

Many members make the mistake of thinking Ability Maxing is required for era competition. It absolutely is not. Using embryo transfer with 30 day pasture bonus surrogate mares, will grant you lots of foals that are already perfect breeding ability without the need for Maxing. The trick is to identify which of these foals is your best breeding candidates. Do this with breeding advice, and comparison testing. If needed you can also find perfect breeders using foal PT. All of the below methods also work for finding ideal foundations.
- Using Foal PT The slowest but cheapest and most exacting way to find your best breeding horses is just to breed them. The PT of a horse tells you nothing about its breeding ability but the PT of its foals tells you everything. If your horse can produce the maximum possible PT for that generation than that horse is the maximum possible breeding ability. Just change the generation and PT of the below examples to whatever generation ability level you are trying to test for.
  
  Example 1: Foundation stallion Paco is bred to three mares: Annie, Peanut and Buttons. Annie's foal is a 10.3 PT, Peanut's foal is a 10.5 PT, Buttons' foal is a 10.0 PT. The 10.5 PT foal has the highest possible PT for a 2nd generation foal. (See the Highest Possible PT scores by generation list below) Because Paco and Peanut have produced a perfect PT foal we know both Paco and Peanut must be the highest possible breeding ability for their generation. We do not know about Annie or Buttons' breeding ability yet as they could have just produce on the lower range of their ability.
  
  Example 2: Stallion 2 has ** star papers and might be cap quality. He is bred to a group of random ability mares of mixed generation. This gives us no usable data. We know nothing new about his breeding ability.
  
  Example 3: Stallion 3 has ** star papers and might be cap quality. He is bred to a large number of ** mares already known to be cap. He produces no 14.0 PT foals. There is a large chance, but not a guarantee that he is not cap ability.
  
  Example 3b: We take one of the foals from Stallion 3 from a known cap quality mare. The Foal is Ability Maxed and it's consistency made perfect in the GMT lab. (Horse Page >> Control Panel >> Gene Mod Lab) The foal is now the best it's parents can make but only has a PT of 13.9. Stallion 3 is known guaranteed not to be cap quality.
  
  Example 5: Stallion 5 has ** star papers and might be cap quality. He is bred to a large number of ** mares that might be cap quality. He produces several 14.0 PT foals. Stallion 4 and all mares who produced 14 PT foals with him are now known to be cap quality.
  
  Note that generation is what we are looking at here not era. You can use any mixed eras to test for ability via foal PT
- Comparison Testing to Victory If you don't want to gamble on using foal PT to gauge quality, and don't want to spend on maxing you will need to master Comparison Testing. Comparison testing is available to upgraded members and costs 8,000 hbs for basic members and 4,000 hbs for premium members. While this price might seem steep it is a fraction of the cost of testing by breeding.
  
  Don't forget you can use GMTs to change the gender of a horse. Which means you can use them to comparison test the opposite gender as well if needed.
  - Comparing To Parents At bare minimum comparison test your foals to their parents. Foals should test as superior to their parents, though as you approach and reach breeding ability cap this will no longer be possible. This is a very low standard and will result in lines that advance slowly. In addition because male foals only compare to stallions and female foals only compare to mares you may end up with lines with a wide gap in ability between the stallions and mares in your project making progression impossible. This sort of comparison testing is better than nothing but not very good.
  - Comparing Siblings A much better method is to compare siblings together. Start with two colts and comparison test them together. If one tests superior, geld the one that tests worse. Then test another colt to the superior one. If the colts test "about as good as", just set one aside and keep comparison testing the untested cults. At the end you will have one colt (let's call him the Best Boy) that test better than all the altered colts and a pile of colts that tested "about as good as" a bunch of other colts.
    
    Take your "Best Boy" and test him against all the remaining "about as good as" colts, geld any he tests superior to. Do the same for fillies. At the end you will have a small group of colts and fillies that all test about as good as one another and are all on the high end of quality but not guaranteed to be perfect. This method is fiddly, and expensive but produces far better results than comparing to parents.
  - Comparing to a Benchmark Using a benchmark gets rid of all the fussiness of comparing siblings. Horses don't need to be related to compare them. You just need to be the same gender and know what ability range you want to compare to. Keep one benchmark per generation and you are always a single comparison test away from knowing the quality of any foal born in your barn.
    
    Below are a number of ways you can establish your benchmark testing horses.
    - Best Boy/Best Girl Use the sibling method above to create a male and female benchmark at each generation. If you find a horse that tests superior to your prior benchmark, replace it with the new superior one. This is the most common way benchmarking is done and the most affordable.
    - The Known Quantity A horse that is known to be the best possible breeding ability because it is maxed or has produced a perfect PT foal makes a great benchmark. Because there is a range of horses that will test "about as good as" these horses you can't use them to prove a foal is perfect breeding ability but you will know for sure they are within a few points of perfect.
    - Boosted Perfection It is possible to create a benchmark horse that will always test to superior to every foal except for perfect breeders of that generation. Start with a foal that is perfect for that generation. That means it must have parents of the highest possible ability and have perfect breeding ability itself. Maxed lines are useful for this. Apply exactly two 1% breeding ability boosts to this horse. (Horse Page >> Control Panel >> Breeding Boost) All foals of the same generation/quality will now test worse than this horse unless they are perfect breeding ability.
      
      This is hands down the most powerful way to utilize comparison testing and will eliminate any need for maxing to ensure perfect ability foals.
- Buying from other players Can't afford all that? No problem. Buy your stock from other players. (Normally that means investing in good quality straw and eggs.) You never have to start from zero to get high ability, high era stock. Buy cap quality stock from the primary era lines, or buy top ability stock from limited lines and jump into the competition at that point. While building a line up from foundations can be a lot of fun, there is nothing that says you need to do that. The leaderboards don't care if your stock is purchased or homebred.

What's Possible Per Generation?

Highest Possible paper scores by generation starting with perfect C/Yellow foundations.
- 1st Gen C/Yellow
- 2nd Gen B/Red
- 3rd Gen A/Blue
- 4th Gen Low *star/Low *gold
- 5th Gen High *star/High *gold
- 6th Gen Very Low **star/Very Low **gold
- 7th Gen Mid **star/Mid **gold - Breeding Ability Cap
  - After this point, further progress can only be obtained from boosting.
  - Being 7th generation does not guarantee a line is at cap. This is simply the earliest point it is possible.
Highest Possible PT scores by generation starting with perfect C/Yellow foundations. Note how the increase in PT gets smaller each generation
- 2nd Gen 10.5 PT
- 3rd Gen 11.4 PT
- 4th Gen 12.1 PT
- 5th Gen 12.7 PT
- 6th Gen 13.2 PT
- 7th Gen 13.6 PT
- 8th Gen 14.0 PT - Breeding Ability Cap Parents
  - After this point, further progress can only be obtained from boosted parents.

Cap Breeding Ability

What is cap? The breeding ability cap is the maximum breeding ability any horse can be born with in the game. No matter how good the parents of a horse are, they will never produce a foal that is better than the breeding cap. Boosting can not be used to "make a horse cap ability."

Cap quality falls in the middle of the ** star/gold range. Horses can be ** and not be at breeding cap, and boosted horses can be ** and above cap. You can never rely on breeding papers alone to tell you if a horse is at cap quality.

You can use the following methods to guarantee a horse is at cap quality:
- SBA and *** or **** parent Strict breeding advice will always pass a cap quality horse. *** and **** horses can never produce a foal that passes breeding advice except for those cap quality foals. So if a horse passes strict breeding advice, and has a ***+ star/gold parent they are guaranteed to be at cap quality.
- By Breeding They only way to produce a foal with a 14.0 PT score, from unboosted parents is if both parents are cap quality. This is an straightforward way to prove the sire and the dam are both cap quality.
- By Ability Maxing If a foal is sired by two perfect ability 6th generation parents, and has had Ability Maxing, then it can be known the foal is cap quality. If they foal has perfect consistency they will also always have a 13.6 PT score.
  
  Alternatively, any full siblings of a known cap quality horse, are guaranteed to be cap quality themselves, if they receive Ability Maxing.
- By Comparison Testing A benchmark can be made by taking a known cap quality horse and appling two 1% ability boosts. Only cap ability foals will comparison test "about as good as" this benchmark horse. See the "Boosted Perfection" section above for more details.

Boosting and Double Boosting

When to Use Boosting Boosting should be applied to cap quality horses to turn a ** horse into a *** one. Only boosted horses will ever achieve ***+ papers. While you can boost any horse at any time, and may choose to use boosting on a non cap quality horse, in it generally inadvisable. Boosting is expensive and comes with an era penalty that degrades the era of your lines every time you use it. For the best shot at the leaderboards, limit boosting to only cap quality horses, and try to keep your eras as high as possible.
How to Boost In order to be boosted a horse must have no living or archived descendents and be intact (a stallion or a mare). From the horse page boosting can be found under Control Panel >> Breeding Boost. The "Breeding Boost" link will not appear if your horse can not be boosted.

Each horse can be boosted a maximum of 5%. On the breeding boost page you will have two tabs to choose from, "Boost with GTs" and "Boost with IVs". GTs can be purchased on the "Buy Upgrades" page for USD. IV's can be purchased with hbs on the "Upgrades for HBs" page. If you are boosting for the leaderboard you should use the 5% boost option. The 1% is not impactful enough for the leaderboard and is best limited to creating benchmark horses.
Double Boosting The best horses in the game are double boosted over cap (10% boost total) and marked with 4 asterisks ****. Each horse can only be boosted 5%, but if you clone a boosted horse, the boosted ability is also duplicated. The clone is already 5% over cap. If boosted again the clone will now be 10% over cap resulting in a double boosted over cap clone.

Step By Step:
1) Confirm a horse is cap breeding ability and that you will be able to clone it.
2) Apply a 5% boost to that horse making them *** star/gold.
3) Clone the boosted horse.
4) Add a 5% boost to the clone making them **** star/gold.There is no need to max the clone.

Double boosting costs 5 million hbs on top of cloning and other fees, but double boosted horses are phenomenal for producing large armies of high PT show horses which are the best in the game at increasing your daily profit and ranking up your breed. It is strongly recommended that every barn invest in a double boosted stallion for creating show horses as soon as they have the funds for it.

Finding Balance

Know how it works but know what works for you. The strategies listed above will help you master the leaderboards, or push your other projects to cap ability as fast as possible. Knowing how it works lets you make an informed choice about how aggressive you want to be with culling your lines. It's ok not to use testing benchmarks, not to boost, or to keep less than "perfect foals", as long as that's the way you want to play.

It's no fun having no clue why some players always seem to dominate and your barn can't advance. When all players have an equal knowledge base competition is as fair and open as possible to all players.

Advanced Facilities

What Are They?

The Advanced Facilities section provides you with access to the very best and most recent scientific advancements in equine care and reproduction. Fair warning, though, this level of research and development does not come cheap!
- Some sections of the Advanced Facilities are open for all members to use. You can:
  - Use Boost tokens to increase your horses breeding ability
  - Use Gene Modification Treatments tokens to change or add colors or traits to your horse
  - Unalter a horse which has been spayed or gelded
- The Advanced Facilities which are available to members with a Basic Upgrade include:
  - Access the Advanced Breeding Lab to:
    - Collect straws
    - Sell straws or eggs
- Premium Upgraded members can use the Advanced Facilities to:
  - Access the Advanced Breeding Lab to:
    - Create to implant, or sell embryos
  - Clone a favorite horse to produce a nearly perfect duplicate
  - Access the option to download selected data about their entire herd

Where are the Advanced Facilities?

You can access these features by scrolling down the left navigation bar to, and clicking on, "Advanced Facilities" and then using the links contained within the drop down menu.

Upgrades And Options

HorseGeneticsGame.com offers a variety of upgrades and options. You can purchase additional barns, pastures, game cash installments, breeding boost tokens, Genetic Modification Treatment tokens (GMTs), special tack packs, and two different upgrades; Basic and Premium.
Our options and upgrades can be purchased in two ways:
- You can use game dollars, which are converted to Investment Vouchers (IVs) at a cost of $12,500 game dollars per IV.
- By using real money in the form of a credit card via Paypal.
  - Premium upgrades can only be purchased for real money, and via a monthly payment subscription through Paypal
Many of our fantasy and Limited Edition (LE) genes can only be obtained through purchase with real money. These genes cannot be traded, bred, or sold between members unless both members own a license for that gene. There are rare exceptions to this rule. (see Rare, Limited, and Closed Genes )
Members with upgraded accounts have access to some features of the game that Free Account members do not. As mentioned before, however, the game can be played and enjoyed quite sucessfully without using these features! Some of the upgrade features include:
- Performance Testing (PT)
- Access to the Advanced Breeding Lab (for breeding using straws and embryo transplants)
- Strict Breeding Advice (SBA)
- Buddy Chat rooms (for private sales and breeding)
- The Auction Bid Watcher, sales watch lists, and more!

Stable Management

Can I Change My Username And Stablename?

Yes, but only if your account is less than 2 weeks old, or has symbols other than letters and numbers, in which case you may change your Username for free.
Existing accounts may change their username for a cost of 1 Diamond Token.

Can I personalize my stable page?

Upgraded accounts can personalize various parts of their stable pages. Depending on the level of upgrade you select you can:
- Add a default image to your horses pages
- Select your own breed name (see restrictions below)
- Design and use tattoos

Tattoos

Tattoos are available to players who have purchased an upgrade
Somatic Tattoos are not the same as brands. While basic brands are generally only white, tattoos can be applied using a variety of colors
Upgraded players are assigned one free tattoo slot. Additional slots may be purchased for 10,000 HBs
Somatic Tattoos can be placed on your horse, or in the horses picture to designate a variety of qualities and colors. Some people use tattoos to denote different genes, breeding lines, generations, etc.
- You can place 'hidden' tattoos on your horse by placing the tattoo on your horses lip. That way it is available for searches, but does not appear on the horses image.
HorseGeneticsGame.com allows you to upload images (within specific size requirements) to use as tattoos. As with all images used on the game, tattoos should be unique, and must not be under any copyrights.
If you are not artistically inclined, you can commission other players to design and create tattoos for you, and purchase those tattoos from the designer.

Breed Names

Horses owned by Free Account members will have ‘National’ as their breed name and then the body type of the horse (National Warmbloods, National Riding Pony, National Draft Horse, Etc).
When you buy an upgrade you can select your own breed name. It is important that breed names be unique and purely fictional.
- You may not use the name of real places or things, or the name of existing breeds
- Common words are not allowed, so no ‘Wonderful’ Warmbloods, or ‘Desirable’ Drafts.
If you don’t know if a name is allowed, simply ask on the Forum, or the Facebook Pages, other players will probably enjoy helping you find just the right name.
If a breed name is discovered that does not meet the criteria that name will be removed without notice

Create A Horse and Herd Helpers

What is a Herd Helper?

Every day each player has the ability to create as many random horses, with random genes as they have money available
In addition to those random creates, each member is assigned a Daily Herd Helper.
- You will find this option on the bottom of the 'Create a Horse' page.
- Each Herd Helper will have certain genes assigned to it, including additional bonus genes that may, or may not, affect the original genes!
- There are a set number of creates available, which varies by the different ranks of the Herd Helper. If you share the Herd Helper on the Forum, or on Facebook, other players can use it, and you will earn additional bonus creates for every share used!
Daily Herd Helpers can be re-rolled 5 times without charge. You can share, or dismiss these Herd Helpers however you like.
- If you don't particularly like the original Herd Helper you were assigned. Just don't activate it. Click re-roll this Herd Helper to get a new one to use and/or share!
- Once you have used your 5 free re-rolls, you can get more, but they will cost you 5,000 HBs (game dollars) each. As long as you have cash available you can flip through Herd Helpers until you find one that you want to activate!
- If you choose to only share your Herd Helper with specific friends, you can copy the Herd Helper link and send it to your friend via a Private Message (PM).
Herd Helpers are ranked 1-5 according to rarity and how 'special' they are. Exceptional Producing horses and Special Herd Helpers will be ranked a 5 and have extremely limited shares, while lower ranked Herd Helpers will have more shares and bonus creates available.
Limited Edition genes will not appear as Daily Herd Helpers. Some Special/Rank 5 Herd Helpers will possess genes such as Pearl and Brindle. However, they are the exception, not the rule.
Bonus! By creating horses you are eligible to receive a daily lottery bonus ranging from $10,000 HBs to $1,000,000 HBs and the occasional VERY special Candy horse that can be turned in for a Gene Modification Treatment (GMT) token!

Special Herd Helpers

Special Herd Helpers are released very selectively, and they are rare. If a Herd Helper is shared by the main "Ammit" account, you will receive one create and cannot share for additional creates. Infrequently some of these will appear as Daily Herd Helpers, and you can activate them like regular herd helpers. Some Special Herd Helpers are SO special that they will never occur again.
Unless the description of the Herd Helper specifically says Perfect Foundation, Exceptional Producer, or Exceptionally Perfect, there is no guarantee that the horse will not be spayed/neutered when tested.

Candy Ponies and Seaponies

Candy Ponies
- Overview Candy Ponies will appear randomly while creating foundation horses. They generally have red and white peppermint stripes. In October they will appear with candy corn markings instead. Candy Ponies can be redeemed for a free Gene Mod Token(gmt).
  
  How to create Candy Ponies can appear randomly at any time with a 1 in 5000 chance. They can also appear during special "Candy Time" events. A box at the top of the Create a Horse page labeled "Candy Time" will proclaim "Stuff your barns, it's candy time!" to let you know the event is active. The box will also detail the creation odds and limits for that event.
  - Any foundation create can be a candy pony. It can be any age, BC, herd helper, regular create etc.
  - Candy Ponies can only be created, they can not be bred for and will never appear other then on new creates.
  - Candy Ponies are easier to create than Sea Ponies, because of this they are limited to one per account per day, unless noted otherwise.
  - If the odds say 1 in 10 that means every create you make has a 10% chance to be a Candy Pony. It does not mean that you are guaranteed to get one after creating 10 horses.
  Selling Candy Ponies Unlike Sea Ponies, Candy Ponies can be sold to other players. The GMT attached to them is worth exactly 125,000 hbs. The base horse might add some value if it is a desirable herd helper but generally you can expect to sell any Candy Pony for 125,000 hbs. Because of this, there is no reason to auction them. Just list them for sale.
  
  Turning Them In From the page of your Candy Pony click "This horse is a Candy Pony and can be turned in for a gene mod token." Or from your member home page select Account and Stable Management >> Candy & Sea Pony Turn In. Once you turn them in you will be rewarded with a gene mode token. You get to keep your horse. The candy stripes will disappear automatically. If you do not see "This horse is a Candy Pony and can be turned in for a gene mod token." on a horse's page it means they are NOT a Candy Pony. Such horses have been already turned in and are not worth any GMTs.
  
  Keeping Candy Ponies Some players choose to keep their Candy Ponies with the GMT intact. As long as you don't turn them in you can keep the special appearance. However if your Candy Pony dies of old age you will not receive the GMT.
  
  Candy Type Peppermint markings versus candy corn makings is determined by what month it is. If the Candy Pony image is generated in October it will have candy corn markings. Images generated in any other month will be peppermint marked. The birthdate of the horse is not factored in. Only the month during the time the image is generated. Peppermint candies can become candy corns, and vica versa.
Sea Ponies
- Overview Seaponies will appear randomly while creating foundation horses during the month of June only. Look for the "Let's go fishing!" event box. Instead of a normal horse they have been blessed by the sea witch to appear as fantastical hippocampus. Seaponies can be redeemed for a free Gene Mod Token(gmt).
  
  How to create Seaponies can only appear during a special event in June. A box at the top of the Create a Horse page labeled "Big Splash" will proclaim "Let's go fishing!" to let you know the event is active. The box will also detail the creation odds. There is no limit to the number of seaponies you can create in a day.
  - Any foundation create can be a Seapony. It can be any age, BC, herd helper, regular create etc.
  - Seaponies can only be created, they can not be bred for and will never appear other then on new creates.
  - If the odds say 1 in 50 that means every create you make has a 2% chance to be a Seapony. It does not mean that you are guaranteed to get one after creating 50 horses.
  Selling Seaponies Seaponies can never be sold or auctioned. They can only be turned in by you. The one exception to this is Random Acts of Giving (RAog) where Seaponies can be gifted to other members. This limitation only applies with seaponies that have an attached gmt. The Seapony fantasy Breed Characteristic (BC) can be sold freely. Turning Them In From the page of your Seapony click "This horse is a Seapony and can be turned in for a gene mod token." Or from your member home page select Account and Stable Management >> Candy & Seapony Turn In. Once you turn them in you will be rewarded with a gene mode token. You get to keep your horse. The seapony appearance will disappear automatically. If you do not see "This horse is a Seapony and can be turned in for a gene mod token." on a horse's page it means they are NOT a Seapony. Not all horses with the Seapony appearance have GMTs.
  
  Keeping Seaponies Some players choose to keep their Seaponies with the GMT intact. As long as you don't turn them in you can keep the special appearance. However if your Seaponies dies of old age you will not receive the GMT.
  
  Seapony Breed Characteristic (BC) If you love the look of the Seapony you can breed them yourself. The Seapony BC is available to all members with a BC subscription. This can be applied to your breed and acts like any other BC. There are no sales limitations on these horses. It is a fantasy BC and is subject to fantasy leaderboard restrictions.
During the month of June it is is possible to create a horse that is both a Seapony and a Candy Pony. There is a .04% chance of this happening and it has happened a number of times over the years. These horses are worth two gmt tokens.

What is a Daily Herd Helper?

Every day you'll be given a Herd Helper (HH) on the Create A Horse page that you can activate to help you get special colors or abilities. (See the Herd Helpers section for more detailed information)
- A full list of herd helpers can be viewed here.

Breeding 101

Important information about geldings and spayed mares!

While they may not be able to procreate, spayed mares and geldings are the backbone of your program! As soon as they are spayed or gelded they begin to earn extra training points with every training session. This gives them the potential to be better show horses, so they earn more show points. Recognize their value and don't just toss your spayed and gelded foals away. Running out of space? Use that showing bonus to buy more barn space for them. While your breeding herd may be more fun, your showing herd is how you maintain your breeding program!

Producing Intact Foals

Just like real life, most foals won’t surpass their parents in ability. It is always a surprise when a foal proves to be something extra special. This is also true in the game. You should expect most foals you produce to be future show horses not breeders. That’s great as every account needs more show horses if they want to make more money. Ideally you want to own at least 10 or more show horses for every 1 breeding horse.

It is normal and expected to have many foals fail breeding advice. It does not mean you have done anything wrong, or that your cross is bad.
Increasing The Odds
The specific odds of getting an intact foal depend on the type of testing you choose, the breeding ability of the parents, the breeding method used, and parent inconsistency. If you are not getting enough intact foals, the biggest thing to change is your breeding method. The right method can get you 100% passing foals.
- Breeding Advice VS. Strict Breeding Advice
  There are two kinds of breeding advice tests. Regular Breeding Advice tells you if the foal is a good result for that specific cross. Strict Breeding Advice tells you if that foal is a good representation of its best parent.
  
  Imaging taking a mare competing well at elementary dressage shows. You breed her to a world calibur Grand Prix dressage stallion. The resulting foal has the potential some day to compete at Prix St. Georges. Regular Breeding Advice would pass this foal. He is a great result for this cross. Strict Breeding Advice would fail this foal, because even though it is far superior to the dam it is still worse quality than the sire. Stick to regular Breeding Advice when the sire and dam have different paper levels if you want intact foals.
  
  The greater the difference between sire and dam breeding ability, the harder it is to get a foal to pass Strict Breeding Advice. Regular Breeding Advice does not care about uneven ability in the parents and will pass any foal that is a favorable result for the cross.
- Inconsistency
  It is important to note that along with the breeding ability of the foal, inconsistency also can cause them to be altered. While inconstancy itself is not an issue may players choose to keep it reduced in their herds. If your foal is failed because of inconsistency the message will read “FoalName has a very flighty temperament. I would not breed this one.” This is normally not an issue in new herds but it is good to be aware of. If you start getting this message often you can prevent it by giving your future breeding stallions perfect consistency in the Gene Modification Lab. Link on the control panel tab of the horse page.
- Breeding Methods
  The type of breeding method you select has a big impact on the number of intact foals you can expect. If you have two perfect foundation parents you can expect the following intact rates after testing. Other crosses will have different rates but still follow the general trends. In general it will become more difficult to produce Breeding Advice passing foals the closer you get to cap quality.
  
  Cap quality foals always pass both forms of breeding advice tests.
  
  Natural Breeding
  Natural breeding includes live cover, done from the horse's breeding tab, and pasture breeding, done from your pasture page. Mares, if left in pasture, will gain a bonus that increases by a small amount every day. You can breed your mares in the pasture at any time but they reach the maximum bonus at 30 days. For the best bonus leave them in for the full 30 days if possible.
  
  Live Cover or Pasture Breeding with 0 Days: 66% of foals will fail breeding advice, 33% will pass.
  
  Pasture Breeding with 15 days: 57.5% of foals will fail breeding advice, 42.5% will pass.
  
  Pasture Breeding with 20 days: 45.12% of foals will fail breeding advice, 54.88% will pass.
  
  Pasture Breeding with 30 days: 10.75% of foals will fail breeding advice, 89.25% will pass.
  
  Artificial Breeding
  These breeding methods require veterinary intervention and are accessible to members with basic or premium upgrades. (Remember you can purchase a basic upgrade with HBs!) Breeding using straws requires collecting the stallion from the breeding tab, then using the straw on the mare of your choice. Embryos can be created directly on the mare’s breeding tab for basic members, or using eggs for premium members. Embryos are then inserted into a surrogate mare (from the sire or dam's breeding tab). The number of days the surrogate mare has been in a pasture also improves the foal odds.
  
  Breeding Via Straw: 57.5% of foals will fail breeding advice, 42.5% will pass.
  
  Embryo with 0 pasture day surrogate: 57.5% of foals will fail breeding advice, 42.5% will pass.
  
  Embryo with 15 pasture day surrogate: 10.75% of foals will fail breeding advice, 89.25% will pass.
  
  Embryo with 30 pasture day surrogate: 100% will pass.
  
  Reminder that these examples are only to illustrate the trends and give you an idea of what to expect. The exact rates will be different depending on the specific parents.
Avoiding Lethal Foals

Three genes in the game can result in lethal foals, frame, splash and KIT. Additionally, Splash, frame and KIT promoter can increase the chance that a homozygous KIT cross is lethal.

Frame
Frame is always lethal when homozygous. Avoid breeding horses with the frame gene together to prevent overo lethal white foals. In game horses can be gene edited after birth to be homozygous for frame but can not be born with it.

O/O = always lethal

Splash

In game splash white 2 and 3 are lethal when homozygous and also when together. They are not lethal when combined with splash white 1.

SW2/SW2 = always lethal

SW2/SW3 = always lethal

SW3/SW3 = always lethal

KIT
KIT has the most complex lethality in the game. Some gene pairings will never produce a foal, while crossing anything with DDW (donkey dominant white) will always result in lethal foal. You can use the following chart to estimate how dangerous any given cross is.

For crosses marked Low Risk, Moderate Risk, High Risk, and Very Risky, the chance for a lethal foal is increased by genetic factors other than the KIT mutation itself. Each of the following factors makes it more likely to have a lethal foal. These conditions are additive, with each one increasing the risk even more.

Being homozygous for any combination of KIT promoter mutations adds 1 to the multiplier.

Every copy of splash adds 1 to the multiplier.

Every copy of frame adds 1 to the multiplier.

Every copy of WF1 adds 1 to the multiplier.

Every copy of WF2 adds 2 to the multiplier.

Every copy of WF3 adds 3 to the multiplier.

To avoid any lethal foals stick to green crosses or limit kit promoter, frame, splash and HPS5 white factor in your KIT lines.

The Powder White KIT mutation is not lethal with anything.
Breeding Chimeras

A chimeric horse is formed when twins fuse together in utero producing a single horse with two sets of DNA. This condition is not heritable but some factors can increase the likelihood of it happening.

Every foal has a 1 in 20,000 chance (0.005%) of occurring completely at random.

Chimeric stallions in game have a 1 in 100 (1%) chance of producing a chimeric foal.

Chimeric mares in game have a 1 in 25 (4%) chance of producing a chimeric foal.

Breeding chimeric mares and stallions together results in a 1 in 20 (5%) chance of a chimeric foal.

The Basics

Mares cannot be bred before age 4 or after age 20
- Horses live to be a minimum 17 years old.
Stallion cannot be bred before age 3 or after age 20
- Horses live to be a minimum 17 years old
Mares can only produce one foal a year unless their eggs are harvested and surrogate mares are used to produce multiple foals.
- Members with a Premuim upgrade can harvest eggs from a mare in one of two ways
  - a single egg every 5 days during the regular breeding season
  - mass egg flush, which will produce anywhere from 8 to 14 eggs, and can only be done once per breeding season, after that point the mare will not be able to have another foal until the next breeding season.
Stallions can produce 50 foals via live cover in a single season.
- There is no maximum on the number of foals stallions can produce via frozen semen/straws.
- Semen can be saved as frozen ‘straws’ which can be used at a later date, or sold to other players
  - You can set an expiration date on straws, or leave the date open to keep the straw viable indefinitely.
  - Even after a stallion is deceased any straws previously collected will remain viable indefinitely unless an expiration date has been set
Inbreeding and linebreeding (breeding parents to offspring, or siblings to each other, etc.) have no consequences on HorseGeneticsGame.com.
When breeding via embryo transfer, the surrogate mare used has NO influence on the color or ability of the resulting foal.

What Should I Breed For?

Breeding is completely up to you! Type, color, height, paper level, PT scores; you decide what is important to you. Since the general goal of breeding is to produce offspring that is better than it’s parents we put a very strong emphasis on testing horses before breeding them.
Cross breeding Riding Horses, Warmblods, Drafts, ponies, etc. can result in a variety of body types.
- Each horse has a Bone Density reading as part of their information. There is a range of bone density within each type and it is possible to steadily breed up from Light to Heavy through selective breeding.
  - Light horses/Riding Horses have bone size ranging from .5 inches to 1.49 inches
  - Warmbloods have bone size ranging from 1.5 inches to 2.49 inches
  - Draft horses have bone size ranging from 2.5 inches to 3.5 inches
- There are no adverse effects to cross breeding body types
Breeding for paper levels can be challenging and requires a good understanding of breeding ability. (Breeding *Star papered stallion to *Gold papered mare will not always create a *Star/*Gold offspring. In fact, it could produce a much lower papered C offspring!)
- This is why testing and selective breeding is so important. (See Breeding Inspection)
- Colts, especially, should always be at least as good as their sire - though superior to sire is better. You can, and should, test colts against their sires if at all possible!
When breeding for color it is important to know how the different genes work with one another.
- Some color combinations can result in a foal that does not survive at birth (aka lethal white).
- Know if your horse is heterozygous or homozygous for the trait you wish to produce.
- Some traits CANNOT be added to foals in the gene modification lab

Pastures

Pastures allow you to breed large numbers of horses at one time at reduced costs, and with special bonuses.
- Pasture breeding costs 500 HBs per mare
- Pastures which hold 100 mares can also hold up to 3 stallions
  - During breeding season those 3 stallions will randomly breed the available mares.
- Horse must be older than 2 years to go into the pasture
- Mares 20 years old and over will stay in the pasture but will not breed
- Horses in pasture do not show
  - Their total show points will still count towards your daily showing bonus, but they will not earn new points.
- On the 14th of each month pastures will automatically breed if there are both stallions and mares in that pasture
- On the 28th of the month, all foals remaining in the pasture will be sold back to the game and you will receive 1000 HBs for each foal
You can move your mares and stallions into the pasture to breed them at the reduced cost, then pull them back out into the barns to show, or you can leave your mares in the pasture all season to receive additional bonuses.
- Pasture bonuses accrue to mares only
- The full pasture bonus is acquired at 30 + days in the pasture.
  - While the full pature bonus takes 30 days to accumulate, some people choose to accept less than the full bonus and breed pastured mares earlier than 30 days.
- You can move a mare from pasture to pasture with no change in the pasture bonus, but if you move them out to a barn they will lose the pasture bonus altogether. If you return the mare to the pasture the 'days in pasture' counter will reset to 0
Each player starts with one pasture. Additional pastures may be purchased for real money at the Upgrades and Extras link.

Why Can't I Put This Stallion/Mare Up For Public Breeding?

Check for the following situations;
- Is this horse old enough to breed
- If your horse is a mare, any of the following situations could cause her to be done breeding for the season:
  - Has she already produced a foal of her own this year (check her Foals This Year count)
  - Has she undergone a mass egg flush? (check her standing in the Advanced Breeding Lab, at the Egg collection link)
  - Did a previous breeding this season involve a lethal combination of genes resulting in a foal that did not survive? (There is no record of deceased foals)
  - Are you SURE you didn’t sell the foal back to the game? (It happens a lot!)
- If you are using live cover, has the stallion had more than 50 live cover foals this season?
- Breeding horses with Limited Edition and Fantasy genes (which are bought with real life money) is not allowed on the public market. These genes can only be shared between other owners of that particular gene. (For example: If you have a blue Axiom stallion you can only sell straws and obtain eggs from others who own blue Axiom mares. Breeding Red Axiom horses requires that both parties own Red Axiom horses)
  - There are special chat rooms available for these sales/breedings.

Why Can't I Enter My Horse In This Club?

There are three reasons why you may not be able to enter your horse in a club.
- Horses MUST be color/gene tested before they can be entered in a club.
  - This is to make sure you're entering them in the right club since some genes are nearly impossible to identify visually.
- Clubs require that horses not only possess a trait, but exhibit that trait. For instance... A horse that carries a single copy of Pearl and doesn't express it cannot join the Pearl club. They carry the gene and can pass it to their offspring, but they are visually NOT Pearl.
  - As a general rule, if you don't see it in the written description of the color name, they are not eligible to be entered in that club.
- Horses can only be entered into 4 Breeders Clubs. Double check which clubs the horse is entered in. You can remove it from one club if you would rather it be in a different club that it is also qualified to enter.

There are Color Clubs, Why Not Breed Clubs?

Since upgraded players can have, and name, their own breed there are an infinite number of 'breeds' on HorseGeneticsGame.com. So we "limit" clubs to the genetics your horse carries and the era in which it was born.
- Eras are important for the leaderboards but have no other real effect on game play. People who established their herds a long time ago will mostly have high pointed horses in earlier eras. Using eras gives people with younger herds a chance to win awards on the more recent era boards. (See All About Eras)
- A single horse can be entered in up to 4 clubs which makes them eligible to hold leader board positions in one or more of those clubs for any given game year.
  - You can add, or remove, any horse you own from any Breeders Club, at any time.

How to Contact An Administrator

Make a forum post first.

Most questions can be answered by other forum members and you will get the fastest answer by simply making a post. Additionally, things like bug reports really must be on the forum for them to be addressed.
If you have problems getting PayPal to work please make a forum post. We do not own PayPal and have very limited ability to troubleshoot Paypal problems. You will get the best answers by posting on the forum.
If you made a PayPal payment and there is an issue with it showing up on the site then please send a private message to Ammit with a description of the issue.

Private questions such as issues of account locking, PayPal payments, and other personal issues can be addressed to Ammit on the forum.

How to send a private message:
- Log into the forum and click the "Inbox" link from the forum header.
- Click the "Start A New Conversation" button from the right-hand side.
- In the first box type "Ammit" as the recipient. In the second box type the problem you are having.
In order to provide you with the best possible customer service, we do not maintain a support email. If you have an issue please directly contact us via the forum. Please do not send questions via email as they will likely not be seen. By using the forum we can see your game account instantly and this greatly cuts down on the back and forth we have to do to address your issue.

Random Acts of Giving

What is RAoG?

Twice a year HGG hosts Random Acts of Giving during our summer and winter festivals. These happen every June and December. You can start signing up and creating your wishlist on May or November 15th. Gifting opens on the 1st of June or December and runs until 11:30 PM game time on the last day of the month.

Are you a small/new account? It is totally ok to sign up and not end up giving anything. We frequently have the issue of not enough players to gift too. Just make sure you say thank you for anything you get. Do you want to gift to others but not receive? No problem. Once the exchange starts you can start sending out gifts to players who have posted a wish list. No need to create one yourself.

How do I qualify to participate?

To sign up for random acts of giving you need to meet some very basic qualifications, but I promise they are simple to meet.
- You must make 500 hbs per day in daily bonus from points. This requirement is just to show you understand the basics of how the game works. You will easily reach this amount simply by creating your first horses in the game. If you can create a horse you can meet this requirement.
- You must be an active forum participant. This one scares people off but it is also pretty darn easy. You need to have created a few forum posts and made replies on a few others. While I don’t give out the exact numbers to prevent spamming I promise it really is a very small number. Less than 20 replies! You also need to have interacted on the forum in any way in the last month. (Herd helper shares don’t count!)
  
  Why do we require this? The sad truth is people who don’t post on the forum tend not to be very savvy at the game or invested in it. People who won’t put in the minimal effort to make a few posts, usually can’t be bothered to thank gifters and damage the experience for others.
- Sign up any time. Don’t worry if you don’t sign up before the first. You can sign up for RAoG at any time while the event is active.

Creating your wish list.

In order to sign up for RAoG you will need to create your wishlist. The form gives you some ideas of what to put. You do not need to copy and paste this. It is just there to spark some ideas. If you have specific rules for your barn like never using yellow horses, or only collecting horses with the E gene you need to put those on your list. Remember everything you put here will be visible to the entire game. Be polite, and thankful on your list. Kindness counts for a lot.

It can be very helpful to add formatting to your wishlist. Break things up into multiple lines to make it easier to read. Having a range of things to shop for is also nice. They may not be able to get everything on your list. It’s also a good idea to include a bit about the projects you are working on. Most of all make sure your wish list is clear and easy to understand.

Your first-ever wishlist can be intimidating but both this guide and the community are here to help you out.
Be specific! The kindest thing you can do for the people sending you gifts is to be specific with your wishlist. I know not everyone is comfortable asking for things but think about how much easier it is to shop for a stranger if they give you somewhere to start. Vague wishlists put extra work on someone trying to do you a kindness.

Even if you are the sort of person who likes anything, come up with some specific ideas for your wish list. You don’t have to be over the moon crazy about appaloosas to put high pt appaloosa show horses on your wishlist. Just give your gifters something to work with. They will thank you for it.
You can ask for anything! The beauty of RAoG is that it is no one's responsibility to get you what you ask for. If you ask for a month of premium upgrade, no one has to send that to you. Feel free to ask for elaborate gifts. If no one is able to send you that, it's no big deal. It is however; always a good idea to include some easy to gift things on your list.
- Gift Ideas
  - Specific herd helper horses.
  - Show horse foals from high-ability sires.
  - Show horses with points.
  - Breeding to your futurity stallions and locking foals.
  - If you have a basic upgrade you can ask for straws and/or embryos.
  - If you have a premium upgrade you can ask for eggs.
  - Foundation creates with specific sizes and colors.
  - Lined horses with genes you love.
  - Licenses for specific genes.
  - A month of premium upgrade or breed characteristic unlock.
  - Diamond Tokens
  - Art for your forum avatar and footer, or for your best stallion.
  - ***star/gold horses, or straws from them.
Example Wishlists:
- Hi and thank you for being my gifter,
  
  I am in love with black horses. Silver, pearl, smoky blacks are coat color I'm looking for to start a line. Prefer foundation horses.
  
  It might be a little fancy to have appaloosa or white markings of some kind.
  
  A couple herd helpers I really like are Black Sea and Orca.
  
  I'm in need of show horses any age, prefer over 45 hbs daily but any are very appreciated!
  
  I want to stay away from grey, licensed, and fantasy genes.
  
  Thank you.
  -From MergeThis
- Happy Holidays!
  
  - My bootstrap herd could use straws from *** stallions. Any era is fine. I avoid fantasy genes. I also like recent-era foundations.
  
  - I generally lean toward darker colors.
  
  -My favorite herd helper is Olive Branch and herd helpers that are similar.
  
  -I am always interested in show horses of any level with points, and/or show horses with a PT of 12 or more at any age. I always need more show horses.
  
  -I love getting my hands on bloodlines I would not normally have in my barns. I love fancy tack editor designs, cute names, etc.
  
  I appreciate you so much and hope you have a nice time in the exchange
  -From Abhean
- Thanks for participating in the exchange to be my gifter!
  
  I'm always running out of HBs, so HB donations or show ponies with a lot of lifetime points would really help me out.
  
  If gifting straws or horses the types of horses I like are:
  Medium boned, horse sized horses.:
  Foundation horses need to be perfect or exceptionally perfect.:
  I like Dun, Silver, Rabicano, Sabino, and White 3.:
  I prefer deep/dark coat colors over light/pale coat colors.:
  :
  I would prefer mares if gifting horses, unless a stallion is really special with some rare genes like S+, Sabino 2, White 3, KP, gp, etc.:
  :
  I do not like appaloosa, splash, white 1 or white 2.:
  -From RamshornSportHorses

Once RAoG Opens

Once RAoG has opened for the month, navigate to the RAoG page and hit "Assign me a NEW random person!" or you can pick a name from the "Select a specific member to give to:" drop down list. You can change recipients at any time and for any reason. You never have to give a gift to someone just because you viewed their list. Feel free to check out every list if you want.

There are no participation expectations. You can gift nothing or you can give something to every single wishlist. It is entirely up to you. Only fulfill the requests you feel comfortable fulfilling.
Don't forget you can create, edit, or delete a wishlist at any time. It is 100% ok to change your mind during the event.

News & Alerts

4/15/2026 11:30 AM EST

SWITCH UP! It's the 15th and Random Gene Sale switch has activated. Until the 1st of the month you can now pick up:
Axiom Red

Onyx

Chocolate

Phantom Muddy Puddles

Powder White

Harlequin

4/3/2026 12:10 PM EST

Happy 40th Birthdays Ammit & Haystack!

To celebrate we have put all barns, pastures, and diamond tokens 15% off.
All gene mode tokens, and hb infusions are FORTY PERCENT OFF!
sale ends after Ammit's birthday on the 26th

4/1/2026 7:24 AM EST

FAQ Update

A new section has been added to the FAQ called Producing Intact Foals. This section explains the odds of getting a foal that passes breeding advice, how to manipulate those odds, how to avoid lethal foals and how produce chimeric foals.

4/1/2026 11:30 AM EST

SWITCH UP! It's the 1st and Random Gene Sale switch has activated. Until the 15th of the month you can now pick up:
Dense Pheomelanin

Kit M

Chinchilla

Rainbow Riot Nacre

Phantom Muddy Puddles

Tarnish

3/17/2026 3:56 AM EST

It's newsletter day, keep an eye on your inbox for a free 1k show horse create.

Bonus Stall Progress