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I remember reaching that point. This was back in the day when it was essential to show a horse only when it had a chance of finishing in the top half of its class, and I was keeping paper records for every one, recording their starting score, what they scored in each class, and estimating what their score would be the next week so I would know when to show them. I kept adding barns to have room for them and slowing increasing my upgrade level (at that time there were 5 levels, each one with an additional handful of perks). When it got to the point that it was taking hours and hours each week, just to keep up with the paperwork, I finally threw up my hands and opted for the Level 5 upgrade because it offered auto showing.

Obviously, I never have learned to cull at all, neither then, nor now. I still buy more barns when the ones I have get too full. About the only thing I do is to send inconsistent horses to the auction if they have PT scores of less than 10 , and I've even backed off from that standard now and auction those that are inconsistent and have PT scores less than 9 since even inconsistent horses can make money with the showing bonus. As you can see, I have no words of wisdom for you about culling.

All I can offer is my empathy for the frustration you are feeling now.

It all depends on what you decide your goals to be.

Put the horses you don't want to breed in a show barn. They still have points and will earn you money. You can even spay/geld those that don't fit exactly with your breeding goals to make it less overwhelming.

In terms of showing and breeding, my answer is always that I need more barns and more show horses. The more I have, the more effectively they'll support my breeding. If you can't use real money for this, I would recommend that you buy IVs (investment vouchers) every time you have 12,500 hb. Use them to buy barns whenever you can afford it.

People auction foals quite a bit. There is occasionally a gem in the auctions, but most people won't dig through the extra foals (and older horses) to find it. The best way to make money is actually to keep your horses. People don't pay a ton for them unless they've got a desirable gene (this means different things to different people) or have amassed a good number of points from showing.

Pastures give your mares a little help in producing good foals. The longer a mare stays in the pasture, the less randomly her foal's stats will be generated. This is the "pasture bonus" and helps to make sure your mares are producing at or near the top of their ability. The best of the pasture is exactly what it sounds like: the best foal who is currently in your pastures. Foals MUST be removed from the pasture before breeding season ends if you want to keep them, so don't use it for foal storage.

If I'm missing any info that you're still looking for, please make sure to point it out so we can get you all the answers you're looking for :)

What do you mean by top shower and top breeder? :)

I'm sorry if it seems like I'm asking you a lot of questions in exchange for your questions, but I think it helps to understand the source of your frustration.

It is absolutely 100% possible to get to a point where you can pay for everything with game money. In fact now with the exceptions of the higher level upgrade and new pastures, everything can be bought with your ponies' show winnings. As people have said above, in general the answer is always that you need MORE barns and MORE show horses. If you end up with some warmbloods that you don't want to breed, don't. Spay or geld them, put them in a show barn, and let them earn you money. When it comes to shows, mechanically there is zero difference between the little guys and the big 'uns.

The thing about breeding is that you have to be patient. Horses you breed today won't be breedable themselves until January if they're colts, and March if they're fillies. In the meantime, they should be in a barn earning you points. You can't show them in a pasture. Worse, if you leave babies in the pasture, then toward the end of the season they automatically get sold back to the game and you lose them forever.

As far as people wanting your ponies goes... that's a much tougher thing. Lots of people play this game, but they all have very different breeding goals. The obvious one is color (off the top of my head I have known players who ONLY bred grullos, who ONLY bred blacks, and who ONLY bred chestnuts.) There are brief surges of popular colors, usually when a new(er) gene becomes publically available, but trying to predict them or chase them for profit is virtually impossible. Quality is also an obvious goal, and by quality I refer to horses with relatively even pedigrees who demonstrate improvement over the generations before them. But outside of a few extremely high-end boosted variants (2nd and 3rd generation *Stars, for example) there isn't really a huge market for them. Sure, people will buy them, but they aren't worth a whole lot.

Most of the big stables don't sell their horses. Aside from foundation creates, which anybody can make, I can't remember the last time I sold a horse I bred. I'm sure there have been one or two in the past six months, but it's just Not A Thing for me. I also don't really buy horses from other people. Of the almost 14,000 that I own, exactly 34 are lined horses that were bred by someone else.

I bought exactly ONE of them. One. Because he was a stallion who went back to one of my foundations and I bought him specifically to geld. The other 33 were given to me, either as Secret Santa presents or by friends of mine who play (or have since left the game.)

Now that I've probably buried you in text, I also don't want to discourage you. It's relatively easy to become a successful barn, but you have to decide how you want to define success. If it's to play the game without spending a lot of RL money, that is (sorry Ammit!) absolutely possible, and by her own design. You just need more horses. Any horse can be a show horse. Any horse can make you money. Showing and making money from shows is literally as simple as pushing the enter button.

I want to be a top shower meaning my horses. I want to be a top breeder of black tobi ponies. Eventually work in rabicano.

Yes I want my horses to be bringing in one of the biggest daily show bonus. These are the ones that I have bred myself and have bought from other players.

I can't test PT scores but I do all the free testing on my horses. I want to get up there in show bonus but it seems like my horses are just slowly inching up in the shows.

Once horses get out of Level 1 in showing, it takes the average foundation horse about 3 weeks of training to level up to the next grade. So, they are in Level 2 Local for 3 weeks, Level 2 Regional for 3 weeks, Level 2 National for 3 weeks, and Level 2 World for three weeks, then they level up to 3 Local.

So, yes, they slowly inch their way up through the showing levels. This is why patience is such a huge part of playing the game.

If you go to my public stable page http://www.huntandjump.com/pub_member.php?u_id=137592 and scroll down to the bottom, you will find a link to my Adoption Herd barn. There are a few horses still in there with more than 200 points. If you'd like to adopt any of them send me a PM with their URL's.

I need to go through my own horses and toss a few more high point show horses in, but I won't have time to do that until early next week, most likely.