HGG Community Forums

The short answer is that it depends.

The longer answer is also... it depends. If you're starting with foundations that are C and yellow-papered, then you can always plan for it to take an extra generation to get A/Blue. However, it's not unrealistic to expect to start seeing A/Blue by that third generation. I mostly start with exceptional foundations (so my foundations are B/Red) and I only keep intact A/Blues in the second generation. It's ultimately up to you and your breeding goals though, and how draconian you can bring yourself to be.

The description Hayes gives above is exactly my future goal for a barn, but my breeding stock is not well enough established to achieve that yet, so I make a number of exceptions each year until the program is strong enough to meet that standard. So as previously mentioned, it depends on the person.

Most of my lines start with C/Yellow.

Foundation: Yellow/C
2nd gen: Red/B
3rd gen: Blue/A
4th gen: Blue/Gold, A/Star (it's possible)
5th gen: Gold/Star

@LenasHollywood I started out accepting Red papered 3G mares (Colts still had to paper A and test superior). I used to actually need breeding stock! But several seasons ago i did a mass cull and spayed over 400 mares, most of which were red papered 3G mares lol

Even papering and generations tend to yield more intact foals and better papered foals.. one thing that was hard for me to overcome was when a foal was snipped, it was for a reason! It's breeding quality wasn't up to par or superior to their parents.. I always run foals through strict breeding advice before I ever look at their pictures and then I paper and any colt who doesn't test superior to their father, gets manually snipped.. for my yellow/C foundations, if they don't go up a paper level by the next generation, they get snipped.. my red/B foundations, if by 3rd gen they aren't up a paper level, they get snipped.. there's a method to my madness here as to why I do it that way it's hard to explain but I'll try..

Red/B foundations produce 2nd gen B/Red or A/Blue

2nd gen B/Red HAS to produce A/Blue
2nd gen A/Blue CAN produce 3rd gen A/Blue

3rd gen A/Blues from 2nd gens above can be put together in the same pasture while still being even pedigree and parents are still same paper level

So @Bambi, if you have some second gen mares that are red and some that are blue, do you breed them all to the same A papered studs or do you breed the reds to B's and the blues to A's?
@Bandit it sounds like in that scenario you'd breed them all to A's?

Gotcha. Thanks @Bambi. That's what I've been doing, but I like to hear what more experienced players do

If I have 2 pastures for a given generation, I keep 12 stallions and rotate through them.
3 boys go to 1 pasture, 2nd set of 3 boys go to the 2nd pasture.
I breed by generation, not paper level.
For 4th generation, I use a mix of A/Star stallions in the same pasture, if I happen to have any Star stallions. I have far too few 4th gen golds to do paper breeding. If nothing else, the Star boys still make good damsires.