Horse training on the ranch
Horse training takes place in a building on the horse ranch, where you spend horseshoes to raise your horse's endurance, agility and strength on three separate tracks. The attributes you train carry straight over into races against other players - they decide how quickly your horse gets off the line and how it handles each obstacle. That's why you need to split your horseshoes sensibly between the gallop track, the round track and the jumping track, so your horse isn't strong in just one discipline.
Horse training is worth it for anyone who races against other players regularly - without trained attributes your horse hesitates at the obstacles and loses even where it would otherwise have had a chance. If you only take a horse out now and then, you can happily hoard your horseshoes and pour them all into one intensive training session right before a race.
Training happens on the ranch and costs horseshoes
You'll find the horse training overview on the ranch. You pick the horse you want to improve and use the slider to set how many horseshoes you put into a training round.
Normal training costs fewer horseshoes, while intensive training eats more of them at once but pays out more training points per round. Training points are credited to the horse bit by bit and improve its attributes for races. The game also runs a special weekend edition of training now and then, so it pays to keep a few horseshoes in reserve.
Three tracks develop three different qualities of your horse
There are three training tracks on the ranch and each one targets a different quality of the horse.
- Gallop track - endurance training improves your horse's endurance and energy.
- Round track - agility training improves your horse's agility and nimbleness.
- Jumping track - strength training improves your horse's strength and power.
Every training round on any of the tracks costs horseshoes, whether you go for normal or intensive training.
Upgrading a track pays off twice over
Upgrading any of the tracks raises the number of training points you get from that round. At the same time, the upgrade lifts the cap on how many horseshoes you can put into training at all.
So it's worth upgrading above all the track you use for the horse you send into races most often - on an un-upgraded track the horseshoe limit per round is low and your horseshoes go to waste there.
In races both the starting line and your horse's behavior at an obstacle matter
In competitions against other players your horse faces several obstacles one after another. The attributes you have trained show how well it can handle one type of obstacle in each discipline.
The sum of all three attributes - endurance, agility and strength - sets the starting line, meaning the time needed to reach the first obstacle or task. The higher the attributes, the faster the start.
At an individual obstacle the horse then shows one of three behaviors - a normal clearance, a fast gallop, or a hesitation that slows it down. Which behavior shows up is governed by the specific attribute tied to that obstacle, so it pays to have a horse balanced across all three qualities, not just one.
