HGG Community Forums

There's no real guide at this time - the game keeps being updated and that makes it a bit tricky to write out a full guide. :) For instance, we just got riding horses/ponies and heavy horses/cobs in the game.

Tattooing is just to mark the horse as yours - it's pretty much a brand with color. Don't worry about it if you don't feel like using it. Some people will also use tattoos to mark horses of certain lines or such. It's not required and won't have any impact one way or the other.

I don't believe the owner has ever come right out and said if tack matters or not, but I can tell you that none of my show horses get dressed up - I have far too many to bother with it. I only dress up my breeding stock.

The showing aptitude test never changes, it looks at the stats the horse is born/created with and makes its decision then. So there's no difference if you do it right away or wait a few years. If the horse is a much better show horse than breeding animal, it'll recommend showing. If the horse's breeding quality and showing quality are close or if it's a better breeder, then you get the answer you got.

Also, gelding and mare advice never changes. I would totally recommend running all horses through those as well.

The biggest tip I would give you is to not worry about stallions. You don't really make bank from stud fees in this game - you make your best money off your show string. You'll find thousands of stallions standing publicly you can breed to, there's no point in wasting a stall on one. Plus, by using other stallions at first, you get a nice mix of lines in your barn instead of all your lined horses going back to the same handful of stallions. :)

Second biggest tip I'd give you is to not dump the geldings or spayed mares. If two horses are equal but one is fixed, the fixed one will train up better and go farther in the show ring. So...geldings and spayed horses are good.

It'll take a while to get there - this game rewards patience - but with time you can build a show string that will support all your breeding and buying.

Hope that helped a bit, and please feel free to ask whatever questions you need. Also, going back through the "help me" section and reading old posts may help a bit too, you aren't the first new player with questions. :)

Thank you so much! I'm going through all the help me threads now, hopefully I'll pick up some more useful tips :)
ET

You can train your horses once a week. Just click on Train My Horses under Showing in the left menu bar. Then you show them twice a week by clicking on the orange arrow on their page beside their name or on left side of the columns in the barn page.

If you want to buy some horses, a good source is the Foundation Rescue. Go to search horses and enter 13 in the owner space. You can select any gender. All these horses are the best foundations can be at both training and showing and will add 3 points to their show score every week and score exactly the same both times they show.

Horses just starting out in training will be in very small classes, so luck plays a huge role in how well they do. Don't give up on horses for showing until they have been training into Level 3 or even higher. As Gael4ce said, this is a game of patience and long-term strategy, so it can take a while to get started.

If you'd like to get a jump start on your showing herd, check out this thread, where established players have put up good horses for adoption for a very small price (basically giving them away) to new players who will keep them and show them and not just turn them over through the auction to make a quick profit.
http://www.huntandjump.com/forum/discussion/11509/new-players-check-this-thread-for-adoptable-horses