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For me i always make sure the foal is supirior to parent first. Of course assuming all have been sba tested before testing if they're supirior. I like to breed for certain genes, so then I'll go through all the foals and the ones who dont carry the genes i like get snipped. Then i look at the foals pt scores . I pick the top 3 to 4 fillies with the highest pt score and two colts with the highest pt score and the rest get snipped. The papers mostly follow with if they are worse/aga/sup though sometimes you can get a supirior thats a high B and its other supirior sibling could be a low A . For papers i used to just breed to reds with A or vice versa but now that my goals have shifted to seeing how far i can get with each line i have its crucial to keep my horses i plan to breed together as close to the same quality as possible so there is less of a gap meaning less snipped foals as my lines get longer.

Whether I start from a regular create or an Ex Pro, all of my foals must comparison test better than an Ex Pro. If one has a specific set of genes that I am looking for, but only tests about as good as an Ex Pro, I will keep it intact. Otherwise, everything else gets snipped. I always breed for quality over color. Same goes for subsequent generations. All 3rd gen foals must test Blue or A. All 4th gens must test the same, but comparison test better than parents. By the 5th generation, if they don't test *Gold or *Star, they get snipped. Also, everything must pass SBA. that's always the first test I run. For me, that just makes things easier and cheaper than having to comparison test everything vs. just a few.

@Brandybrookes I think I bred around 20 3rd gens last season for my era 15 line and I ended up with 3 A papered colts and 1 Blue papered filly

It's really just a personal choice based on your breeding goals and your stable. I cull heavily because I have too many foals each year to keep even half intact LOL. I had more lenient standards when my herd was smaller.

Comp testing is actually a step above SBA if you only keep superiors, it's just a lot more expensive. SBA approves foals that are as good as or better than the parents.

I personally only keep blue papered 3g foals and this also saves money on testing, but if you have a smaller breeding pool this may not be ideal for you. Keeping superior foals of any paper color insures that your lines are improving with each generation.

@OopsDotCom The advantage is if you’re going for the era leaderboard. Starting with perfects gives you a 6 month and couple generation head start compared to starting with ex-perfs. For example, by the time December rolls around and a new era starts, allowing the ex-perf creates to be era 15, my era 15 line will be up to the 3rd generation. My 2nd gens test superior to ex-perfs, so the 3rd gens are being bred before any ex-perf offspring and are out of superior stock too. The first batch of even-bred 3rd gens from perfect foundies will be 4 years old in December

I require my 2Gs to be B/Red papered and at least the studs to test superior to expro. If I have the hbs to spare I'll comp test my mares as well and weed out the worse than expros or sometimes I'll max a couple mares and egg flush to get a bunch of high potential 3Gs.

All my 3Gs must be A/Blue papered and I have a benchmark stud who's maxed and out of maxed and best of bunch 2G parents (I almost exclusively use 100-acre pastures, so best of bunch should be pretty darn good), and all my 3G studs must test as good as him before I'll use him. I don't do comp testing for 3G mares but I'm starting to think I should do the same and max for two generations to make a good 3G benchmark for mares too.

If you've had really good quality control all along, you can get *Star/*Gold by forth generation. I've gotten it a few times without maxing the 4G to get it, but I had to max some along the way before that. Right now it's not attainable enough in most of my lines for that to be my benchmark, so I just save the *Star/*Golds for embryo breeding and put all of the comp tested superior Blue 4Gs in pasture to accumulate a full boost, and I comp test all of my Blue 4Gs to make sure they're superior to parent before they get used for breeding.

By 5G, *Star/*Gold is a must. Anything below that gets snipped, and each generation after that must test superior to parent. I haven't gotten farther than this with my more recent lines since maxing came out, but with my Morelian line, I expect **Star/**Gold by 7G. And I didn't even do a lot of testing and culling in this line except by paper levels. I did some testing recently on my older horses and realized the main 3G stud the line was based on for a long time just happened to be as good as my current benchmark, just out of dumb luck. I'm sure that made a difference in the quality of each generation after that.