Horse Breeding

[lechat]

Just to take this thread away from the racehorse bidding thread at Sams suggestion.

If we do explore horse breeding, Id suggest something Simple.  Mating take place in January, foal born in December.  The Dam can't race in her gestation, or first year nursing the foal.  The foal costs 0 in its first year (with its Dam), and 3 livres in its second year as per a normal horse.  At the end of its second year, Sam rolls for the horses stats, and because of the way we've arranged breeding, it will have 11 extra months of maturing.

Up for discussion could be if the stats of the Sire and Dam would effect the foals stats by way of a modifier to its roll.  Or if mating could take place any other month than January, though that would involve a lot of keeping track of when the Dam would be available to race again, and the months of maturing left for the foal in December each year.  Could be done.

As a caveat, this is a minimum of 36 months before there is any return, does that make it a no go before we start?

Please note, I think any rule changes on the number of horses is a completely different topic.  From a personal viewpoint, Fr Gerard seems to be using horse ownership as an indirect way of getting around the risks involved with Priests using con con, and would abuse it to the max if there was any more additional SP from owning extra race horses if he could get away with it.

[Ymbert Montgomery]

I really like this and would be happy to put it in, but I share your concern about the 36 month return period. That's a year and a half of real life game time. What do people think? Are you interested in this kind of really long term investment idea?

[Jeanette Livarot]

Stitching my own question onto this: since I have Sir Coco now and he gets 9 months to get 1d6 SR, if I were to send him to the south of France, would I get the additional roll for that? Looking at 29.12 in the rules specifically.

[Ymbert Montgomery]

Yes, you would. It's why the low SR young horses are a lot better than they appear!

[Valerie Valanon]

May 6, 2021 16:47:52 GMT lechat said:

Just to take this thread away from the racehorse bidding thread at Sams suggestion.

If we do explore horse breeding, Id suggest something Simple.  Mating take place in January, foal born in December.  The Dam can't race in her gestation, or first year nursing the foal.  The foal costs 0 in its first year (with its Dam), and 3 livres in its second year as per a normal horse.  At the end of its second year, Sam rolls for the horses stats, and because of the way we've arranged breeding, it will have 11 extra months of maturing.

Up for discussion could be if the stats of the Sire and Dam would effect the foals stats by way of a modifier to its roll.  Or if mating could take place any other month than January, though that would involve a lot of keeping track of when the Dam would be available to race again, and the months of maturing left for the foal in December each year.  Could be done.

As a caveat, this is a minimum of 36 months before there is any return, does that make it a no go before we start?

Please note, I think any rule changes on the number of horses is a completely different topic.  From a personal viewpoint, Fr Gerard seems to be using horse ownership as an indirect way of getting around the risks involved with Priests using con con, and would abuse it to the max if there was any more additional SP from owning extra race horses if he could get away with it.

Some modifications to this structure seem appropriate to me:

- The mating usually (...) takes place in the time period between April and May, after the Paris Derby. So the Dam is missing only one year of races, as the gestation period is about eleven months, which means foals are born in March and until the Steeplechase in Fall the Dam should be back on track, even with nursing the foal. Along with that, most horses are at that time in Paris so finding a match shouldn´t be too hard a task.

- I like the notion that the stats of the foals are affected by the stats of it´s parents. A simple modus should be met here also, so per every 10 ponts of SR of the parents exceeding 30 (rounded up), the foal gets 1 point SR as a bonus. If e.g. Athena (SR 79) and Big brown (SR 86) would be mated, the foal would have a SR-bonus of 11 points. So there is to make some money by mating horses with a high SR.

In the end, getting money back from breeding horses is a highly speculative long-term investment. And I think the starting bids at the auctions are ridiculously low, if foals cost their own money during their maturing. So either the starting bids should rise significantly. Or maturing a foal is more or less free of extra costs, which I would prefer.

[huillaume]

My own suggestion (after a little research, and taking some of the ideas above):


Any racehorse 4 years (sexual maturity for horses) or older may be dedicated to breeding. This must be announced in May.

Racehorse mares dedicated to breeding become pregnant on 5+ (2d6). If so, they are out of the racing circuit for at least 4 months after giving birth. Along this time, the mare will not roll for improvement, but will lose 1 SR/month (for lack of training) and give no SPs to his owner (nor they do count to the maximum of 2 racehorses)

Birth will occur next (march +1d6 month), and will bring a foal (50% for any gender). A roll of 2-3 on 2d6 will mean there are problems either with the Dam or the foal.

December after the fola reaches 2 years, its SR will be determined, adding 1 per 10 SR Sire and Dam had over 30 at their best moment and +1 additional per win in an official race each of his parents achieved.

(optional): Any racehorse that dies due to the tables will have a possibility that is not really dead, but only incapable to keep racing, but still useful for breeding (a broken leg that can be healed but will not allow it to race, etc.)


NOTE: of course, any roll numbers given here may be altered if you think other will be better.