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Please don't snip nexus! I would die to have a nexus

Well, you have a nice choice of stallions with the 3 new benchmarks, but the other two are really nice too. I would either sell them to people who are looking for new blood in their lines, since they are good, or breed them to see how good of foals they throw, and if you are not satisfied with their results, you can always spay any of their foals and them later.

I would be interested in either one of them, except I have no money to offer a decent price at the moment, lol.

Well, that makes me feel better. I'll probably hold on to them and grow them out then. If I don't get a colt who compares AGA the new benchmark with the genes like these guys then I'll use them :)

I say snip, snip, snip! You can REALLY tell the difference in quality down the line. There have been several times I've kept a horse I knew was not up to quality because I was in love with something about him, and the line suffers. Hold your breath and snip ONE colt now, save yourself having to snip tons and tons of babies down the line. That's IF you're breeding for quality. Mantra: There's always next season, and there will always be another colt! Once you've been playing a while you have colts coming out your ears. Seriously.

As far as finding your benchmark, start with high quality foundations, either rescue or rank special, and compare your foundations to one of those. The best pasture foal email helps when you're starting out, if it's a stud you already know who your best stallion is. It takes a little comparing to find the best of the best, and that's expensive at the outset, but once you've got benchmark you can compare every foal to him ONCE and be done with it, rather than having to compare foals from the same batch to each other. Usually, your best benchmark will be from one of those rank special/rescue stallions, but not always.

Is it possible to set the standard too high? Almost no. If you have a boy who is either a foundation B or VERY close to it, your standard is going to be tough. Cheers and I were discussing this. Her benchmark 2nd gen is, I think, an A, or really close. The problem a high benchmark might be, you're going to get a lot of spays and geldings (because the mares' quality and the stallions' quality are different), and if you're culling mares who can't produce intact offspring with your stallions, you'll cull a lot of mares if your benchmark is very high. Chances are, you're not going to have that problem unless you're starting with an ExPro quality (B papered) foundation, though. And ultimately, the quality of your lines can only benefit from culling mares who don't match up.

SNIP! If you're not in love, if he doesn't make the cut, YOU make the cut. ;)

That includes Nexus and everything else!!

Snip those not quite good enough favorites, keep them, make yourself a barn full of favorite show ponies so you can go ogle them and pet them.

Yup, Abbey is right, soon you will have colts coming out of your ears, lol! I am culling my 3rd gen colts at the moment, and my 3 year & up population just dropped from 83 to 45 (and I'm not quite done yet). My problem now though (or is it an actual problem ;) ), I just compared a colt to my bench mark, and that colt compared better then my bench mark. I feel I now need to compare all my current 'aga bench mark' boys to the newly superior colt.

One of the boys who didn't make the cut was a S+ boy I bought. He compared AGA the the first benchmark so I know he wont pass when I compare his to the new benchmark. It's colts like this that snipping makes me very sad. I want to hold on to him. :(


http://hj2.huntandjump.com/horse.php?horseid=361887

He came worse then the new benchmark............I've compared a few of the other colts to the new benchmark, that passed the old benchmark, and they all have compared worse to him. None of them have gotten AGA

This is really frustrating and I feel your pain. Like Abbey said, my benchmark is super super high (I have an A papered Gen 2, my Bpapered benchmark compares AGA him so he's a very high B), so i snip a LOT of colts each season. Unless I specifically say so, I don't compare colts I sell--it would make them too expensive! Even with all top stallions and lots of Red mares at the foundation level, I snip way more colts than I keep. And my satin stallions have still failed to give me a colt that passes my benchmark...but there is always next season.

Let me know if you want a King foal that passes the comparison test next season and I will try to get you one.