How to Decide Which Horses to Breed

Discuss: Understanding genetics and inheritance, lethal genes (why did my foal not survive), breeding quality basics - link this to the Improving Your Bloodlines content. Remember to link to other articles/subsections as needed.

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.
    • There are three different body types of horses on Hunt And Jump:
      • LIGHT; Elegant riding horses and ponies similar to Anglo-Arabians, Welsh ponies, or Akal-Teke horses.
        • Horses in this category are referred to as Riding Horses (RH) or Riding ponies
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      • MEDIUM; Horses with a bit more bone and body mass, similar to Warmbloods, Hunter type Quarter Horses, or Sport ponies.
        • Horses in this category are referred to as Warmbloods (WB) or Sport Ponies
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      • HEAVY; Draft horses. Still refined, but more performance oriented than typical Draft horses.
        • Horses in this category are referred to as Drafts, and the ponies are called Cobs.
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  • Cross breeding Riding Horses, Warmbloods, 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 Paper, Letter & Color ranking)
    • 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

Does inbreeding or linebreeding (breeding parents to offspring, or siblings to each other, etc.) have any consequences on Hunt and Jump.

• • No. There are no consequences for inbreeding or linebreeding in the game.