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I usually expect *Gold and *Star at 5th gen. I will keep 4th gen A colts intact as long as they test superior to sire. My fillies must paper Blue or occasionally *Gold at 4th gen.

A horse's PT score has very little to do with its breeding ability. You can look at the horse's offspring, however, and in that case a good measure for progress from one generation is at least half a point, on average... so if your 2nd gen mare has a 10.5 average foal PT score, you'd want any mares she produces to have foals whose AFPT is at least 11. Keep in mind that the best way to get a good average is to have three or more foals because there's something like 1.5 points of variability that can be produced. (For example, basic perfect foundations produce between 8.9 and 10.4.)

There's also a degree of overlap between paper colors/letters, which comes out pretty obviously if you use Comparison Testing (which for colts you should; it'll tell you absolutely who's better than who, and if you want to get to the *Stars, you should always look for colts that test superior to their sires, regardless of the paper level.) There's enough of an overlap that you can have 3 generations of As in which each subsequent generation tests better than his sire, because the first A is 1% over being a B, the 3rd one is 1% short of being a *Star, with one smack dab in between.

Getting absolute increases across generations (C->B->A->*Star or Yellow->Red->Blue->*Gold) IS possible, but without paying for boosts it's the exception and not the rule. It's pretty safe to expect two generations of a gap between color changes, so two reds, two blues, then *Gold. And, like HayesStable up there, I usually expect to start seeing *Gold and *Stars at about 5th generation, but I start primarily with Exceptional Producing foundations; if I was using basic foundations it would be more like 6th generation to compensate.

That's probably about as clear as mud...

Thanks for the info everyone. LOL, that was so much clearer than mud Stone Silo. My Foundations are a mix of unboosted ExPro, ExPer, Rank 5, and Rank Specials that I use for pasture breeding. I try to keep ability level between stud and mare close so I get the best chance for superior intact offspring. I think I'm on the right track with my colts because only the boys who comparison test superior to their sire make it to my breeding stock. However, I'm spaying my 4th gen fillies that paper the same as their dam. My thinking was that for fillies to stay intact they had to paper superior. Here's an example of 2 girls I spayed, but maybe should have kept intact?

Anything Shadow

http://www.huntandjump.com/horse.php?horseid=5672904

Sierra Maiden

http://www.huntandjump.com/horse.php?horseid=5672903

Starting with exceptionals i expect star and gold by 5th generation, very occasionally you will get a star or gold at 4th gen but they are the exception. I always had minimum of star set at 4th gen but recently changed it as i didn't have enough to usefully breed.