Welcome!! I focus on Polish Koniks. I also started by buying the highest GP I could then breeding up using the Nyx pack or Aphrodite's Tears with every covering. Never cover with less than 100 BLUP (a horse must be 10 years old with 20+ wins and top three skills maxxed out/"bolded").

There is a cap on foal skills so never play for more time than is sensible - you want to put your horses to bed by 10pm with 20% energy at least. I usually then train the three best skills as much as possible, then spend time maxxing out skills from forest/mountain rides, before doing some comps to hit the bold threshold.

Honestly? It takes forever. I'm still NOWHERE near the top horses, but it is fun seeing the GP increase with every gen! So tips from "better" players may be more helpful than this, but I'm happy to answer any further qs

I'm not very experienced either, but here are some thoughts to add to beansean's comment:

I mainly focus on the breed I started wtih (Shetland), though it does take *ages* to get anywhere. I do also BLUP horses I buy of other breeds. If you're looking to get horses with a high GP, definitely buy at least a high GP female (you can buy coverings from other players' males, though there's no guarantee the available ones will be high GP or fully blupped). If you do buy a male, make sure he isn't a gelding (represented by a blue circle symbol instead of the usual male/female ones) as they can't breed. It's hard to find horses in the sales with a GP higher than around 17,000, which is still a way off from the best horses in the game, but it's a big step up from your starters!

For tips on blupping, you can look at the guide on Twilight Connemara's page (they also have tonnes of useful info on other aspects the game).

It can help to gain the maximum skills from playing with a foal (+10 in each skill), but that isn't essential to reach 100 BLUP. As beansean said, you just need to fully train the horse's three best skills through rides, training, and entering competitions that use those skills (you can tell when each skill is finished because it will go bold on the display underneath the horse's picture); win 20 competitions, and reach 10 years of age. Doing lessons/missions with the horse makes the horse gain a small amount of skills, but those don't count towards 'bolding' the skills either.

Good luck!

Hi, welcome to the game...

A lot of your questions will be answered during your first 30 days whilst doing the apprentice objectives. This is where Howrse 'trains' you in the basics, so pay attention...!

After that, then much of what has been said above will help you progress. The key bit that is missing, is that you will never reach those top GP levels on your own, All those leading horses are team horses, and it is only by working together with other likeminded players that you can pool your efforts and catch up with the top teams.

On this server, the fastest time (that I've seen) taken to go from 'starter' horse GP (often referred to as foundation stock) to top GP was about 3 months... That was a team of experienced players... but the point being made, is that it can be done...

Hi guys!

Thanks for your replies. Some great tips. I clearly have a lot to learn!

Teams is something I need to learn about, I have no idea how they work, how to join, what's involved etc. I assumed that being such a new player would perhaps discourage people for wanting a newbie in a team!

I think maybe I am worrying about too much at once...

Is there a place where you can see:

- What each breeds top 3 skills are and what competition they are best suited to
- Best method's for BLUPing depending on breed/competition
- Best method for gaining maximum skills for foals through play

I can offer one piece of advice that most new players end up with problems when they try to do too much too soon.

Take your time and don't go spending right away.

Take what you have now and learn the ropes. When you understand what you are doing then look around for something better. If you try and get ahead too soon, you will make mistakes and a mistake on a good horse is a lot more damaging than a mistake on a lesser horse.

Hello and welcome!


Yes, there are two ways:-

1. On a horse's page underneath the 'characteristics' tab (located in the middle section underneath the horse's image, energy/health/morale bars and skills), click on the breed name and it will take you to a page showing the various coats and skills for that breed.
Have a look at the skills on this page - the stars + numbers beside them will show you which skills are highest. Look for the three skills which have the most amount of stars, or the numbers which are highest.

2. On the main overhead menu, head to the 'Community' -> 'Directories' -> Horses.
Here you will see a list of breeds on the left hand-side. Clicking on each of these breed names will take you to the same page described above where you can work out the best three skills.


Achieving 20 wins can be the most difficult part of a BLUP, so often the best method is to work out which competitions your horse could easily win in.

Every competition has 3 skills associated with it. Competition difficulty is determined by the primary skill (which is the skill displayed at the top of the list on the competition's page where you can enter your horse). Therefore, a tried and true method of achieving wins is to keep the horse's primary skill for that particular competition as low as possible, and train up the other two skills as much as possible, before entering 20 competitions.

Once you know the breed's best 3 skills, you can use these to determine if you should start forest or mountain rides first (bearing in mind some lucky breeds only need one type of rides completing) - avoid rides that will give your horse skill points for the primary skill of the comp you plan on entering.

Perhaps the horse has a naturally very low skill that isn't needed for BLUPing, which is the primary skill for a certain comp, and the comp's other two skills are ones you need to train up anyway. Or, perhaps you need to keep one of the horse's top 3 skills low and train up the other two, until it has achieved 20 wins.

Note that not all players will BLUP in the same way and do things in the same order, it is down to preference but keeping one skill low for competitions is a very common method.

The player Dr Zig has a wonderful training + blupping guide on their profile page. They even go into detail about which order of training/rides/etc are suited for various breeds, so I think this will definitely be worth a read.


dragoniys offers a guide for foal games that differs for horse breeds + pony breeds. There are a handful of other players I have seen with similar advice but this is the one that sprang to mind.

Hello! Welcome to the game! <3

I appreciate I'm a bit late to this thread, but I noticed nobody touched on your question about teams.

Firstly, I would second Wingman's advice - don't empty your wallet just yet. Use your starting horses to get a feel of how the game works, and what routine works for you (top tip: feeding at higher energy gives more energy to the horse, stroking at low energy gives more energy as well!).

Fortunately there are a whole lot of teams on the game for you to choose from - I recommend finding a breed that you're interested in and having a look on the teams' pages to see if they're recruiting, and what their requirements are.
Some will specify a certain amount of BLUPs a month (minimums), require references from established players, or will recruit privately - others may say they are a relaxed team and may state that they're willing to take on newer players. I'd recommend going with the latter at your stage!

I highly recommend having a look at this page which summarises how teams work and what they provide (I haven't linked another page before so hopefully it works!).

Ultimately I wouldn't worry too much about joining a team just yet - I didn't join my first team until earlier this year, and I've been on this game for longer than I'd care to admit! Learn the basics, get comfortable with the mechanics and navigating the site, and feel free to keep asking questions!

Happy Howrseing!