Breed a mare
Breed one of my mares. It is the same operation as Breed with one of my stallions, taken from the other end: you start from the stallion and you choose the mare.
Same rules, same refusals, same free of charge — both horses belong to you. Only the way round changes, and it changes for a good reason.
Why two windows for a single thing
Because one does not reason in the same direction according to what one is looking for.
You start from the mare when you want to correct a weakness: this broodmare is short of suppleness, which stallion would put that right? That is the other window, and it accepts a batch of mares.
You start from the stallion — here — when you want to make use of a quota. The stallion is the scarce resource: he has a limited number of matings, and the question becomes “which mares am I going to give them to?”. That is the reasoning of the owner of a good stallion, and it is far more frequent than the other as soon as the stable grows.
How it goes
The list of your mares, with a Breed button on each line. One click, and the game displays its verdict: the expected date of birth, or the reason for the refusal. The confirmation button appears only in case of agreement — nothing is written before.
One mare at a time, then: that is the drawback of this way round. To deal with a batch, go through the mares.
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 stallion's quota
That is what brought you here, and it does not work the same way according to the world. On Almina and Bezir, the stallion earns one mating a day once his first two months are past: a quota that builds up as long as it is not used. On Chorus, it is a stock that is not renewed, unusable before he is three years old.
The practical consequence is the opposite from one world to the other. On Almina and Bezir, a sleeping quota is lost yield: better to breed regularly. On Chorus, each dose spent will not come back: better to wait for the right mare.
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.
And for other people's mares
You can breed only your mares with your stallion. To let others benefit from your stallion, you do not lend them the horse: you sell them matings. See My stallions and Sell a mating.
It is often more profitable than racing: a good stallion brings in every day, with no risk of injury.