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Yes, please! I have been quick to buy some foundies in the desirable colors, only to notice they have not been tested, and end up with some quite expensive show ponies...

I love being able to use the Strict Mare Advice now. I have been going through my mare herds to weed out the inferior mares, that passed regular MA.

I'll have to check out the Strict Mare advice. I've only used the normal one up till now but it would certainly help clear out my 2nd gen and only help me better my herds.

I will probably wait for my 3rd gen in most of my lines but it helped me make a nice clean cull of my mixed group and my Splash Tob group :)

Please! The test are available and don't cost anything.
Wouldn't you want to know that they horse you are paying for is worth the money you are paying, without worrying that it will get snipped the moment you take it home and test it yourself?

I should also clarify that just because I have a love hate relationship is no reason not to use SMA if you have access to it. And please. Everyone. Use the free testing. Spay and neuter responsibly, even your pixel ponies!

This is an awesome post. Im a pretty new player. My issue has been buying a few not cheap horses and then having to run them through SMA and they get spayed... like every time. I know a lot of people dont have upgraded accounts and cant use it but most of the mares I had bought had been from premium upgraded players. It took me a little bit to realize how to get to SMA so that could also be a factor with some people. Like Cheers I have a love hate (mostly the latter..) relationship with it but that doesnt mean I dont use it lol

@fj: Mare Advice has a broader range of acceptable foal abilities. Smart Mare Advice tightens up the "about as good as her dam" range so that the test is more equivalent to Gelding Advice for colts.

In all three cases, Charlie (I'm assuming it's Charlie for the mares, too) compares the breeding ability of the colt or filly with the breeding ability of its sire or dam. If the foal is "significantly worse" as a breeder than the parent of the same gender, then it gets automatically neutered. For example, I will pull some numbers out of my head for foundations and their offspring. Please don't take them for the real parameters. Only Ammit knows what those are.

If a stallion's breeding ability is 100% and his son's breeding ability is less than 90%, the colt will be neutered by GA. If a mare's ability is 100% and her daughter's breeding ability is less than 85%, Mare Advice will neuter her. If the filly's breeding ability is less than 90%, Smart Mare Advice will neuter her.

I will repeat: These are NOT the actual numbers used by the program to make the determination. I just randomly chose them to give an idea of what I think may be happening behind the scenes when we click the button to test a horse. I do not know the exact numbers.

Just some Newbie insight: I only recently, within the last week or two, realized SMA (Strict Mare Test) and MA (Mare Test) were two different test. Everyone uses short hand so it took me awhile to figure it out. They don't make SMA easy to find. It's a little link inside the Mare Testing. As a Newbie the word "Strict" scared me. Being as how I was just starting out the last thing I wanted to do was loose a horse that I was using to build a line because I was to "Strict" on them to soon. Strict is a scary word so I never even clicked the link to look at it. I finally got the nerve to click and look at it. The description reads "Strict Mare advice compares a mares breeding ability to her dams. Mares that are significantly worse breeders then their dams are spayed. Strict mare advice is as strict as Gelding Advice. Mare testing is free but spaying is automatic." The key sentence for me was " Strict mare advice is as strict as Gelding Advice." So I guess MA test the mares but not at the same standards as it holds the boys to. If you have access to SMA why would you not hold your mares to the same standards you hold your stallions? My answer to that question is, I wouldn't. So I ran everyone through. Yes, there were a few I was sad about. I lost both my 2nd Gen Leopard Appaloosa Mares, but I can make more, possibly even better quality now. Now I'm not afraid of the SMA. The word Strict isn't that scary now because now I know it means I'm simply holding my mares to the same standards that I hold my boys to. It's just another test I will run before I ever look at my foals. I don't look at my foals until the testing is complete because then I don't hesitate to run a pretty foal through testing. You don't know what you might loose if you've never looked at it lol. I don't look till after, then it's not so hard and it's not as sad, at least for me. Hope this helps someone and gives a little encouragement to other Newbies and maybe a little understanding to the more senior players.

Your post gave me a mental image of an old grey school marm mare in reading glasses, looking very disapproving. :)

Oh yeah, it was very helpful!

ROFL I was actually thinking about that. I noticed, obviously, all my Foundation mares passed and wondered if it was because they were foundation or if I was just lucky........glad I wasn't the only one

Yeah, I lost quite a few of my GP colts and fillies to Charlie. But I want to keep my GP line high quality. I even gelded a couple myself that papered lower than their daddy's did. I don't want any second rate colts or showable only intact horses in my GP line. I was pretty sad to lose a couple of the ones, that had a really nice color, and some nice patterns also. I am still working on them now. But, hopefully down the breeding season road, I will get some that are up to my standards to continue on my GP line.

Wish there was a way stop the seller from listing them if they were not tested. Bought a beautiful mare for 5000 and mare checked her to find out she was not a good brood mare she was spayed. ☹️ Please test your horses before selling them.

Hi, so I got a higher gen mare to try to improve my herd. I got a really fancy genetic filly that I was really excited about that got snipped. I read the mare advice thing that said it would snip mares less than their mothers, so I'm thinking the filly got snipped because my stallion in second gen. Is there still a possibility that foals from this mare won't be snipped, or are they likely better than my second/third gen foals even if they aren't at the level of their mother? I know the answer is to get a higher stallion, but I'm still at the newbie level of loving that stallion, and literally I come back to the game simply for wanting to see his babies. Maybe I'll get caught up in the rest of the game down the road, but I want to know if there is a chance to get an intact fall from high gen mare and lower stallion?

Do I run my mares through both the MA and SMA. I have mares that passed MA

I agree with this, Im a new member and made the mistake of buying an untested mare when I first started and of course she ended up getting spayed so I was very bummed! Now I check to see if all the testing is done before I will buy. I really appreciate those who color test as well as I like to know the color genetics. :D