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Oh, boosts are only worth it if you have a specific foal you need to boost to pass Breeding Advice. If you start your herd with boosted stock, it gets harder and harder to get the foals to pass Breeding Advice.

The best bet is to start with exceptional producing something or other, depending on what color genetics you want :D They will paper red and give more intact foals if bred to the same paper level.

First of all welcome! What a good questions you have to ask^^

1. What about the game makes it worth your time? What brings you back?

It's addicting! But most of all it is fun. I like creating and breeding horses, trying to progress my lines and be suprised by the colors that come out of it. I do not have any horses in my surroundings, so this is my way to still 'do' something with horses. I also like that it resembles real life so much by the real life genetics, so every time I learn something more! :) And the gaming environment is so nice as well, the friendly community makes playing the game feeling like a warm bath to me.

2. What is it about Basic or Premium upgrades that makes them worth your money?

I never had a premium upgrade (oh boy do I wish I could get that one day!) as I live in Europe and do not have a credit card. Therefore I cannot spend real money on the game.
But I've held a basic upgrade for years now, all paid with IV's (so from game money). I really like that it trains your horses for you, I have over 5,000 horses I think so that would be a pain to do every week.
Also the extended options like papering your horses and being able to buy, collect and sell straws and to create embryo's is super useful.
The thing I would like the most about having a Premium is that is autoshows for you, so your points will increase and thus your weekly showing bonus, all automatically. And the ability to clone and collect/sell/buy eggs is also something that would be useful to me.

3. What would you consider to be your "must have" upgrades, or what would you recommend for a new player interested in the game and willing to spend a bit of money?

I'd say go for a basic upgrade first to try it out, as you are fairly new. It helps you with the training of your horses, increases your weekly pay and gives you an extra pasture I believe. As showing is the thing that makes you the most money, it really helps if your horses get trained automatically so you won't forget it and miss out. If you like that or feel that you'd like some more features than you can always go for premium.
Buying boosts/GMTs is nice, but showing is what makes you money. My evolution of my barns went from buying a few extra barns to buying a basic upgrade, a lot more barns and only after a few real life years I started to invest my game money into GMT's to create some nice foundations of my own.

4. Lastly... for someone not able to consistently spend extra money on a game like this, is it possible to make it to the top of the leaderboards one day with only having a Basic or Premium Account, and not purchasing boosts with Real Money?

It is absolutely possible! You can make the top by having foundation or second gen horses with the most showpoints, or you can be on the leaderbord with the best producing mares or stallions. The points can be held by anyone, as long as you consistenly train and show your horses you don't even need an upgrade for that (but it is handy to have basic or premium as they do the hard work for you and they never forget to train and/or show).
The top breeders leading board can be a bit harder to get, but if you keep quality as a measurement you'll do fine.

I have these two guys, currently being #10 and #14 on the leaderboard of the Snowflake Breeders Club. They both come from boosted foundations, but that wasn't done by me. I could buy them and/or breed to their ancestors, resulting in these fine fellas:
https://www.huntandjump.com/horse.php?horseid=6162289
https://www.huntandjump.com/horse.php?horseid=6455553

I also have these two girls, being #1 and #2 of the White 1 leaderboard. Never boosted, just bought their ancestors and bred up to this:

MS Dubloon Of Magic L
This started with the horse MS Dream Big (I just noticed this, funny!), from there on I bred up to this.


MS Double Yes L
This one also started with MS Dream Big apparantly, had no clue.

But I hope this shows that breeding for quality can be done by anyone, boosts are not necessary! The only thing boosts do is make you 'skip' a generation, so it helps you advance faster.
So yes, as a player who has never been able to spend real money; it is entirely possible to get on the LB without spending real life money! And also entirely possible to have almost 9,000 horses, more than 130 add on barns, GMT'd foundation horses and a nice weekly showing bonus, all achieved with just game money and some help from others along the way.

My comments are not going to be near as neatly organized as everyone else, mostly because I agree with what they all said, and only have a couple things I'd add:

Boosts: I use boosts perodically when I have a colt who is Drop Dead Gorgeous in color, but is lacking in the breeding department. Premium Upgrade gives you the opportunity to compare colts to their fathers to see if they are worse, as good as, or superior to their sire (or other selected stallion). If I think the colt is just a bit lacking in breeding ability I might add 1% boost just to see if that put him over the top.

Best part of a Premium Upgrade: Auto Show. The general consensus is that you should have 3 show horses for every 1 breeding horse you own. So the more breeding you want to do the more show horses you need and when you get to the point of owning those 1000 stall barns you are going to NEED that auto show feature!

1. What about the game makes it worth your time? What brings you back?

I am VERY new to the game but so far what brings me back every day is just the endless possibilities with my horses. It is so cool how realistic the genetics are and playing with different options for color, pattern, bone density, performance level, etc is super fascinating. It's fun seeing what your annual foal crop is and planning for future generations.

2. What is it about Basic or Premium upgrades that makes them worth your money?

I got a Basic upgrade with the $2 deal for new players. Almost immediately I knew I would be renewing for an annual basic upgrade. It's so nice to have the auto train and enter barn feature to make showing and training easy. I also appreciated the upgrade gift of a new pasture and barn. Oddly enough, my favorite part of the upgrade is having a stable image on my horse page and being able to tattoo my horses. I work in PR in real life so I'm all about having a "brand" for my stable Haha. The advanced breeding lab features are also obviously super handy.

3. What would you consider to be your "must have" upgrades, or what would you recommend for a new player interested in the game and willing to spend a bit of money?

I would definitely recommend the basic upgrade especially at the $2 deal, it gives you a sense for a lot of the upgrade features of the game without spending hardly any money. Then you can either decide to continue that upgrade, invest in a Premium upgrade, or revert back to no upgrades.

4. Lastly... for someone not able to consistently spend extra money on a game like this, is it possible to make it to the top of the leaderboards one day with only having a Basic or Premium Account, and not purchasing boosts with Real Money?

I cant really speak to this because I'm so new but sounds like it is definitely possible :)