Leaving sentiment aside (which is admittedly difficult for me), there are a number of \u201ceconomic\u201d aspects to breeding within the Sim that may be useful to keep in mind.\u00a0\u00a0 While we all want stakes winners (heck, GRADED stakes winners),\u00a0not all breedings will accomplish that, no matter how great the pedigree may be.\u00a0<\/SPAN> Breeding Points vs. Credits It\u2019s probably not a good idea to remain locked in to a commitment to use only one or the other.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Not all sires are available for credits, even 5 minutes after breeding starts for the week!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/SPAN>If you\u2019re fast enough, and have credits enough, you can probably get any sires\u00a0 <\/SPAN>you want at the start of the week if you\u2019re willing to pay a hefty premium price \u2013 some \u201csuperbreds\u201d could easily cost you $25 if you want to use three top-tier sires before they\u2019ve come up as \u201cavailable.\u201d\u00a0 <\/SPAN>This could be worth it, if<\/I> you have plenty of cash to spare, and<\/I> are bound and determined to breed a superhorse, and<\/I><\/B> <\/I>are willing to accept the possibility that your expensive superhorse could<\/I> still be a dud.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>We\u2019ve all seen horses with amazing pedigrees running in low-budget claimers.\u00a0 <\/SPAN> On the other hand, if you\u2019re short on breeding points, credits are an excellent option, even if you don\u2019t drop the \u201cbig bucks\u201d on supersires.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Many good sires are available for credits, sometimes even late in the week, and even more good damsires\/dam\u2019s damsires will still be available for credits.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>A little research can go a long way in this instance, particularly for damsires.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Check their stats and check out \u201colder\u201d sires.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Newcomers to racing may not be aware how good some of the previous generation sires were.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>The minimum amount of credits you can buy is 500 ($5), and a pretty nice horse could be bred for that amount.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>The\u00a0 <\/SPAN>only breedings you can\u2019t<\/I> do with credits are bargain breedings \u2013 stay under 100 breeding points to breed a horse, and the price is divided in half; and if you don\u2019t have 50 bps, it might not be all that good an idea to try to breed a bargain until you\u2019ve had a bit more experience.\u00a0 <\/SPAN> Another consideration, if you want\/need to use credits, is that breeding using a horse already in your stable allows you to use credits, even if the damsire\/dam\u2019s damsire are not available for credits that week.<\/I> Breeding Using A Currently Active Horse If you have a beloved favorite horse, all logic goes out the window, so we won\u2019t even worry about that.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>If you love the horse, you\u2019ll use it anyway.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>I confess, I\u2019ve done that, and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn\u2019t.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Using any <\/I>horse currently in your stable also has the advantage of being able to use credits to breed, even if the damsire\/dam\u2019s damsire are not<\/B> available for credits.<\/I>\u00a0 <\/SPAN>This expands your options! The two things you want to look at before breeding an existing mare is her race record and her pedigree.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>For the race record, Mike has said that a mare\u2019s ability somewhat influences her offspring, anywhere up to 50%.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Your first question to yourself:\u00a0 <\/SPAN>\u201cWould 50% of her ability be a disaster?\u201d\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Depending on your goals, she wouldn\u2019t necessarily have to be a stakes winner \u2013 was she competitive enough<\/I>?\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Was she able to win or hit the board often enough, and with decent enough speed figures, that you\u2019d be satisfied with another like her?\u00a0 <\/SPAN>If not, is her pedigree outstanding enough to compensate for it?\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Untalented mares by elite sires can still produce well \u2013 remember, it\u2019s UP TO 50% of the ability; it could be much less, and some of that ability could be inherited from the very talented damsire. To be consistently competitive in the claiming ranks, speed figures of 80 or above are needed for sprinters (and that\u2019s an absolute bare minimum<\/I>), and 70\u2019s or above for distance horses.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Was your mare able to run those figures most<\/I> of the time?\u00a0 <\/SPAN>If not, and she is NOT by an elite sire, she is not<\/I> worth breeding.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>And if you still want to use her and \u201cupgrade\u201d by using an elite sire, keep in mind that the cost for breeding from an existing mare is 50% of the sire\u2019s \u201cstud fee\u201d, or a minimum of 50 breeding points.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>A poor quality race mare with a mediocre or worse pedigree simply isn\u2019t going to be worth it.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>The chances of her offspring being \u201ccost effective\u201d in terms of earning breeding points are minimal.\u00a0 <\/SPAN> Using\u00a0 <\/SPAN>existing male horses as \u201cshe-males\u201d is a little different.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Remember, you always<\/I> want to check lifetime<\/B> past performances.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Older males who have made a lot of starts, even if they\u2019re running for a $2000 tag now<\/I>, may have had quite a bit of talent in their younger days.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Were they stakes winners?\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Did they have a time period of running consistent 100+ speed figures in their youth?\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Are you willing to accept a foal who would peak at 2 or 3 rather than at 4 and up?\u00a0 <\/SPAN>If so, the older males can be \u201cshe-male\u201d material.\u00a0 <\/SPAN> In this scenario, the next thing you want to look at is the pedigree.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>How expensive would it be to duplicate the pedigree from scratch?\u00a0 <\/SPAN>The cost to \u201ccreate\u201d a she-male is a flat 250 breeding points\/credits.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>If it would cost more<\/I> than that to duplicate the pedigree, it starts to be cost-effective to perform the (ahem) \u201coperation.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <\/SPAN>A male horse with a good record and a good pedigree will probably be more affordable in terms of bps\/credits to use than a similar mare.\u00a0 <\/SPAN> Yes, I agree that \u201cconverting\u201d males to females is \u201cunrealistic.\u201d\u00a0 <\/SPAN>However, so is \u201cbreeding\u201d using only sires and not actual dams.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>This is<\/B> a game, after all; the use of \u201cshe-males\u201d is permitted, and if your current male horses are better than your current females, this breeding can be\u00a0work to your advantage.\u00a0 <\/SPAN> In another article, we\u2019ll take a look at breeding from retired mares, breeding from scratch, and bargain breeding.<\/SPAN><\/P> Is your proposed breeding cost effective?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breeding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}