HGG Community Forums

Ok, thanks, so it's entirely possible to get gold papered mares as early as 5th gen using normal create stock. Guess I need to go through my older stock again once breeding is finished.

Well we'll have to see what happens once I have enough mares for 5th gen to judge.

But... Mare papering isn't as strict as the stallion papering is. Stallion papering is like this: it is either A or B, A or *Star. With mares it is more of a scale with some overlap. So a red mare can be equal to a blue mare, but her papering says red. I have a few horses like that myself, hope I'll can find some to add as an example.
Like this mare: http://www.huntandjump.com/horse.php?horseid=2921038 Pt wise I expected her to go blue (and since she was pasture bred) but she papered red. While I thought this girl would paper red: http://www.huntandjump.com/horse.php?horseid=3196115 but she ended up blue. (Also a good example to not fully rely on PT score as an indicator :p)
This post on the old forums has always stuck in the back of my head: http://www.kinetocoredesign.com/showthread.php?13888-Mare-Papering It's quite old, maybe nog 100% relevant but that image/scale says it all. This was the old papering system however, back then foundation mares could paper gold when they were above 110% breeding, but that's not why I posted this link. That scale shows that there is overlap in the mare papering colors. Especially for Kat, Gold mares at 3rd gen is extremely hard to get. It *is* possible, but most likely they will be 'high blues'. At least that's what I'm experiencing in my breeding.
I almost only use Exceptional Producers to start with, and most of the time even boosted Studs (A papered). What I'm experiencing is that I somtimes have 2gen blues, but most of the time reds. As long as they give me foals with good PT's (so above 10.2 or so) I'm fine with that. 3rd gen blues are common, but I still get a lot of reds too. Sometimes (like I said earlier) I expect mares to go blue based on the PT they're throwing, but they end up red. But for me that isn't a reason to directly cull them. Only if I don't like them that much or if the foals they produced have such a low PT (not anywhere near what you would expect from a blue mare) then I spay them directly.
So with my breeding this is what I want: B or A - A or supA - supA/*Star or *Star - *Stars. So by 4th gen I want all my boys to be *Star papered. For my mares it is this: red - red or blue - blue (or high red) - blue - high blue but preferably *Gold. However, getting these *Golds are hard, and as you see I expect my mares to be a bit behind than my boys. So at 4th gen I don't accept red papered mares anymore, at third gen only high red papered mares.
But as you can see, everyone has their own guidelines. Find one that you're comfortable with. And the higher the papering goes, the more 'levels' there seem to be to me so that's why I'm kinda patient and kinda expecting a slow but steady progression! Hope this might help out too! And hope it is understandable what I'm trying to say, English is not my native language :p

I understood what you were saying pretty well, Masterstable. I don't keep yellow foundations, though, so I do expect to get blues at 3rd gen. Since I am starting to see more mares paper blue at that generation, I figure, why keep reds when I can get a blue. Maybe it'll help me see better progression at 5th gen and past that, all my older lines were stalling at 5th gen.

If I might chime in here, there's something I've been wondering about mare papering for a while and it sounds like you all know your stuff... How do you choose the right stallion to breed to your mares to get her the highest potential paper level? Do you use the same stallion three times, or three different stallions or is that even a consideration?

Thanks!

I also use pastures for my breeding, and don't spend too much time over thinking which stallions I use. All of my 2g stallions for my KP/Snowflake/Black/Brown lines comp AGA my benchmark stallion, who is superior to his A papered foundation sire, out of a Blue dam. So all of those stallions are of the same quality, just various color options. For my DP line, it's only a few seasons old, so I haven't sorted through my colts enough to find my benchmark yet, which I should do today since it's been brought up. For my 3g studs, I've only gotten a few Star colts, so I haven't gotten to needing to find a benchmark yet. 4g, I have finally gotten 2, I think, Star colts, superior to their Star sires. It's a constant work in progress to maintain and set new standards. Because I am so strict, and have a relatively young account, I don't yet have a huge 3g, and my 4g selection for both mares and stallions is literally a handful lol. But again, I'd rather be left with very few quality horses, than a ton of horses that have marginal quality. More show ponies!