So, I've always pretty much ignored Battling Qualities as a stat in my games, as pretty much 99% of the horses I get, have 10%. Plus till now I haven't played enough to get it in there. However, I have accidentally bred a load of front runners these past couple of months. It means I have decided to have a look at getting battling qualities into the lines as they will probably need it. So far most of my runners have led or been thereabouts into the final furlong (including group 1s an a classic), then just collapsed in a heap. This is probably because all my lines are based on speed at the minute, I haven't bred anything beyond 1m2 at all (just starting now for next upload window), but also feel Battling qualities will help

I looked through my spreadsheet of game horse stats I gathered when starting out the other month, and found a colt with 75% battling qualities (his other stats are very workable too) and a filly with 95% (her stats aren't fantastic besides this though). I've never seen these this high before, so now I've decided to try an get these into my lines, as a test before SO7, given how far behind I am at the min, I g#figured it's a good test.

Does anyone have any experience trying to get Battling qualities into their lines? If so, was it into front runners, or horses that take it up early? I'm assuming these are the only 2 traits it would have a positive effect on.

Vinny

I think trying to keep battling in u horses is a tough thing to do, it always seems to fall away with mine. I've never had a flat horse with it and the only horses that have it is my national horses but that's slowly going out of them. The only thing I see with it is the horses head seems different getting near the line. It's a hard thing to judge and what it really does.

I've only ever really concentrated on 2 green bars myself tbh, however, I tend to only play for a couple of months every 2 years. Done it differently this time, I found in my current horses that if you start getting the best CK horses (game Breds) ignore their stats, then after you're happy, just get the stats. concentrate on getting horses full potential, full Speed, an as high as poss for Cruising. After you have both, just breed those lines into the best CK horses, who will mostly have reasonable stats anyway. I find now, that this doesn't weaken the lines at all, just power breed the lines, get one really good colt, an a load of filly's, then move forward using these horses into your main breeding lines. I don't even trial the ones bred solely for stats.


Using this I think I can secure the battling qualities, as my potential and speed lines never drop below 100 now, or the 60-70 I have for cruising, an the others in the secondary category all seem to be holding at 100 too. An I firmly believe once you get the 'stat' horses back in, I use fillys with my very best colt in the CK, an keep breeding until his foals are all the same stats, trialing now, they always seem to be better than the previous male. I don't see how this would be different for battling, especially as all my horses now seem to be front runners


Vinny

I bred my flat lot for this league in roughly in the same manner and the non ck horses will degrade the ck horses often as not. I also found battling qualities does not seem to be based on a +\- of the parents, it seems more random in application, though I have not really focused on it as I have not noticed it making significant difference, though logically it would seem to be a sound addition for those front runners who just love to go into reverse in the last 2f.

no matter what you do it seems to breed out the next gen anyway and i think its a bar that mean little to nothing

So if you breed a 40 battling qualities with a 60 you don't get somewhere in between there same as potential an extra speed? I never breed for trials until I get the amount I want in almost all fillies, which means it shouldn't be back to 10 at any point after a couple of cycles. Then allows you to speed breed it into your lines.

you can have 2 90% BQ colt and mare and in a gen or so it starts dropping its one of the bars
that does not stick

Ah, interesting, looks like I'm wasting my time then

Maybe not, as even if you get 60 to stick that is likely 50 more than everyone else, but I see the same as Paul, 90 and 90 potential will equal +\- 5 90, 90 and 90 battling seems more like it will go 10-90. So a hard ask to hold in my experience. Not sure I can think of anything else that behaves the same way in breeding.

i'll let you know tomorrow currently working on 2 lines of 90% battling its hard to maintain but think I just found a game changer watch this space

Battling Qualities do mean something. If two horses of equal stats are racing head and head in the stretch but with one having better BQ that BQ horse will most likely out fight the other. BQ seems to only come in play when horses are head and head in the stretch. I've noticed in the formcard that horses with battling qualities higher than the predominant 10% level are the only horses who get the comments "Gamely" and "Battled Back".

I was working on BQ back in 2016 for my first season. I had quite a bit of horses. Even though it says 7f as best distance, they run as sprinters. The work involved in keeping the stat was insane but eventually I was able to get around 10 mares with 9.0+ BQ. It took a long time just to get my sprinters to acquire the stat.

I got to thinking that the task of trying to pass it on to 1m, then 10f, 12, 14f and then 2m then adding to the NH side with all the different distances was just mind boggling. The time you would need to invest is just insane. I gave up after I was done with the sprinters. I could really never tell if the stat did anything at all.

In trials the distance was so short that I could never tell if the stat was working or not. It probably has some effect on a race but 5f-
6f I think was too short to notice.

If someone wants to work on them go on ahead but I just have to warn you that it takes an incredible amount of time just to maintain the stat thru generations. It's doable but a lot work is involved.


With a possibility of just 1 more season, it's not worth it. I don't even re-upload these horses anymore for breathing because to me it's just too time consuming even for me.

I'll keep an eye out for this as I have a 95 battling quality horse ready to start all mine off

It does sound like it's a lot of work for little reward. I guess battling quality is actually a mental attribute to a horse, so its realistic iy's not really passed on through generations. Not all Giants Causeways horses are gonna be insanely tough to pass.

I can't really do anything in this season now as I've spent 2 months only on my horses, so I'll be testing a lot out before the next season, this just seems like one of them that's natural given all mine seem to be front runners, even in front 5f I think it should benefit front runners.

ive come to the same conclusion the gains are marginal compared to the effort you have to put in