Breed with a stallion
Breed with one of my stallions. You start from one or more mares and you choose the stallion that will cover them. This is the window of the breeder who owns both parents — it costs nothing, since nothing changes hands.
It goes in two stages, and that is what makes it a good tool: nothing is written before you have seen the result announced.
1. Choosing the stallion
The list of your stallions, with their quota, and a complete filter: name, age, genetics — constitution included on Chorus — and your breeder's folders. This is where the breeder's folders take on their full meaning: “stallions to try”, “speed line”. See My folders.
The genetic filter is the tool of the cross: if your mares are short of resistance, sort your stallions on that before choosing.
2. Reading the verdict, then confirming
The game displays one line per mare: either the expected date of birth, or the reason for the refusal. Nothing is done yet — the Breed button appears only if at least one mare is accepted, and it deals only with those.
Make the most of this screen: it is a free simulation. You can come back, change stallion and compare the dates announced.
The seven reasons for a refusal
Before writing anything at all, the game examines each mating and displays its verdict. A refusal always carries one of these reasons:
- Non-identical speciality. The sire and the dam must run the same speciality. It is the most frequent refusal, and the easiest to avoid.
- A mare for sale can't be bred. Withdraw the sale first.
- A stallion for sale can't breed. Same reason, from the other side.
- This mating exceeds the stallion's quota.
- This mare already has 2 foals waiting to be born. That is the maximum, and it cannot be got round.
- The foal would be born after the mare's retirement date. The trap of old mares: see further down.
- Mating prohibited, the catch-all message: the horse is not of the right sex, it does not belong to you, or it is not yet born.
The quota, and it has nothing in common from one world to another
On Almina and Bezir, a stallion earns one mating a day, from his first two months or so, and each mating made takes one away. The quota is therefore a credit that builds up: a stallion left in peace becomes more and more available, and a stallion in great demand stays scraping the floor.
On Chorus, it is the opposite: the stallion receives a stock that is not renewed, and each mating empties it by that much. He can do nothing before he is three years old. A Chorus stallion is therefore an exhaustible resource, to be spent with discernment — and it is one of the real differences of that world. See Change of world.
On a batch of mares, the quota is consumed in the order of the list: ten mares for a quota of six, and the last four are refused.
When the foal will be born
When the mating is accepted, the game does not say “all right” but “Ok for a birth on…”. The date is calculated, not chosen, and it obeys four constraints at once:
- A foal is always born on the 1st of a month.
- At the earliest 20 days after the mating.
- The mare must be at least three months old at the moment of the birth.
- And if she is already expecting a foal, at least 20 days after that one.
The date retained is the first that satisfies everything. In practice, count on one to two months between the mating and the birth.
The trap of old mares
It is the seventh reason for a refusal, and it surprises everybody once. A mare cannot be bred if the foal would be born after her own retirement — and since the birth is pushed back to the 1st of the following month, the window closes more than a month before the end of her career.
In other words: a mare with five weeks left to run is already barren. If you were counting on getting one last foal out of a good broodmare, do it two months before her retirement, not the week before.
What the foal receives
Its genetics are drawn from those of its two parents — that is the whole point of the cross, and it is explained in breeding. Its coat comes from both parents too. Its speciality is that of its parents, which is the same one since the game demands it. And it carries your breeding suffix: you are the breeder, and that will stay true even after you have sold it.
Its biorhythm, on the other hand, is not passed on: it is discovered at birth.