You're totally making sense. I see your point, and I'd love to hear other input on that. Since we currently have fourteen stats per discipline, I don't want people to breeze through the training as easily and I also don't want them to feel overwhelmed or like it's an impossible task. Especially for horses who max out in a discipline (ie: racing) and then want to transfer that horse over to a new discipline (ie: dressage) and max that one out all before that horse is considered too old to compete or still viable to reproduce.

My idea exactly with wanting to pace it so the horse doesn't get crazy maxed out but also has time to learn at least more than 1 discipline.

Doing some quick math here:

Say the horse starts showing at 4 and retires at 15 years old to be a stud. By using the ES standard (4 month=1year) that would give the horse ~3 irl years to master it's discipline/s.
Say then that it gets trained every day and gains 2 points per session, that's 543 points possible in it's entire career. Of course that'd be pretty expensive on the owners part ($27,100 to be specific) so they wouldn't want to do that anyway.
If the horse gets 2 points every training session then it'd take 7 days for it to complete a discipline... so maybe up the maximum training sessions per horse to 1 session every week? If so, it'd take 14 weeks to completely train the horse, which is 3 ½ months. Basically, almost an entire sim year.
So, if the owner wanted their horse to get 3 maxed out disciplines it'd take them 12 months (1 irl year) and the horse would at the end be 7 years old.
If the restriction is 1 session per month then it'd take 14 months for 1 discipline. The horse would then, after completing 3 disciplines, be 15 years old and right on time to retire for stud service.
Of course it'd be unreasonable to ask someone to dedicate 2 ½ years to one horse (or more). (By the way it'd cost $1400 to completely train one discipline).
So perhaps 2 times a month is the way to go?
That would mean 7 months to complete a discipline, which would be 21 months for 3 of them. The horse would, after this, be 9 years old and still have time to compete and show off these maxed out skillz of it. Oh, and it'd take almost 2 years (1,75) to do it. Much more reasonable to me.
So would it be a good idea to keep how the points per session are being decided, but limit the amount of times one can train per month?
I can do the math for 3 times a month as well if 2 times is still too much for anyone XD

I HOPE THAT MADE SENSE AND I DIDN'T LOOSE ANYONE IN THE MATH XD

So maybe here should be a stop at how many disciplines the horse can be trained in? Perhaps if the horse has fully trained itself in an English discipline (let's say Dressage) it cannot start training in, lets say Combined driving. However, if they start this other discipline before the horse is halfway through it's Dressage, it can train in Combined driving as well.
My point here is that it's usually not very easy for a horse that knows nothing but one discipline to switch to a completely different one. While a horse that knows Dressage can switch to Jumping, because it's still the same commands and such being used, it's tougher to switch to Western as they way of riding is so different.

1st part about the months thing for training: I only used 1 horse as example but of course, if a person wanted to train multiple at once then that'd work just as well. The limit of training session per month is per horse, so one person could still train as many horses as they have the funds for

About paid trainers: If I get it right, members could register as trainers and, if approved, be able to take training requests from other members and by doing this earn money? Would it then be some sort of criteria needing to have been met before they can get approved? (I'm thinking; a certain time active on the forum, a certain amount of shows entered or hosted, have shown some degree of responsibility and reliability and so on?)

Sponsored shows: So, if my guess about what you meant about trainers being members that've registered and been approved as trainers.. if a member wanted to host a show with monetary winnings, they would turn to a trainer and ask them to sponsor it? The trainer would then take from their earnings as a trainer (I assume here that trainers would be encouraged to keep track of how much of their funds are from trainings) to sponsor this show?
Alternatively they can turn to another member/stable and ask them to sponsor? I assume there'd be a benefit to the member sponsoring, if only as getting a thank you in the show description?
Would there not be a need to say, prohibit the sponsor from entering the show they're sponsoring? To prevent them getting an unfair advantage over other members, by possibly having them only agree to sponsor if they're guaranteed a win or they bribe the shows host to place them first so on so on. Or even the member hosting the show from feeling compelled to have them place highly anyway, regardless of the sponsor themselves encouraging it. I'm paranoid about favoritism and bias.

Schooling shows and stats gain: This sounds like a great idea! Could it be arranged so that the schooling show only offers 2 disciplines maximum, but several can run at the same time? I only think it should be like so in case the person hosting would wish to enter themselves, so by having multiple (maybe just 2) running at the same time they could also have a chance.
Maybe arrange the stat distribution as; 1st place = 2 stats, 2nd place = 1 stats and 3rd place = 0,5 stats?
Any horse not placing top 3 could still earn from being entered by getting +5 free rolls in their next training session (if they can provide proof that they actually entered the show).


Certificates and cc: I think certificates should be handled by staff only, maybe even bring on a team that specifically keeps tracks of any certificates or titles a horse gains and keep a record of it for members to look at (a simple spreadsheet could do just fine). Otherwise I see it, if members were free to hand out titles and certificates as they please, to make certificated worthless when they really could boost a horse's worth.
Think; if specific shows ran once a month where a certificate was handed out to 1st, 2nd and 3rd then..
Let's say there are two shows running each month; one conformation show and one performance test. The winner in the conformation show would be selected as a prime example of it's breed and it would reflect good on the horse as well as owner to have that certificate. Similarly with the performance test, the horse that seems the most capable of performing it's job get's chosen as the winner (regardless of the discipline it's competing in). "GE MONTH YYYY Best In Show HALTER" or "GE MONTH YYYY Best In Show PERFORMANCE" <- Example of title for first place.
Custom Content I don't see an issue with anyone handing out, it's common in Sweden at least that the top 3 gets maybe a new pad or leg wraps, sometimes even a new blanket. But maybe do keep it to top 3 only, so it's still a desirable prize and doesn't force the host to create a bunch of cc (as I assume nobody would want to win the exact same thing as someone else)

Yes in regards to paid trainers. Basically there are no set criteria since we are still new...and still working out the kinks in registering your sims.. but basically you start from the bottom and build your reputation as a trainer (by being knowledgeable and doing research in real life about the discipline/breed). Obviously as you work your way up, you get higher pay and your training shows etc give out more rewards if that makes sense.


You make excellent points about sponsored shows. Yes, a sponsor would be considered a co-show host of sorts and would not be able to enter the show, with the exception of randomized shows. And well, sponsors wouldn't really need to assist with monetary payout, as it's our policy here on GE to award members who host their own shows incentive: mentioned here.


As for schooling shows, I may just use that. Saph and I hadn't really talked much about them either as I was still trying to grasp the stat concept we have at the time lol Part of this discussion is about how to simplify that system to be more noob, or just member friendly in general. But you are correct in that schooling shows award stats and a small monetary prize, not points and such.


About CC and certificates...generally yes, we don't allow members to hand out titles etc. by certificates, I more just meant another form of a ribbon or some such, but I can see your point. What do you think about having certificates for GE sponsored shows only? Not for any show sponsored by another member etc. And yeah, for CC..honestly just like a blanket that says: "SHOW WINNER" or some such.