Showing placement is definitely important, but so's training. Geldings with major weak spots, typically, are going to place in the money for a shorter amount of time because the game will go on and move them up to the next level based off of their strong areas. Unfortunately, the horse won't do very well. Ultimately, it's better to remove these horses from a show string because they'll spend a lot of time being trained opposed to earning money. It's also a pain trying to figure out if they're ready to show or not, moreso if the horse is super strong in one trait.

The exception to this tends to be geldings who've been switched over to another discipline after hitting level 10. Jumping to XC and vice versa. The other two maxed out trait areas are usually more than enough to cover the major weak spot from whatever discipline they were previously in.

Hoot Owl Hollow said:

Any gelding who is PPP+ is worth showing my opinion. I know some people even use SSS. I show AD and the ultimate goal is to show horses with green show dates you can see on the easy enter show page. I have a guide here that goes into depth for how I show: https://horseeden.com/blog.php?id=306393&b=2

Feel free to PM me with any additional questions!

The Old Gods said:

Showing placement is definitely important, but so's training. Geldings with major weak spots, typically, are going to place in the money for a shorter amount of time because the game will go on and move them up to the next level based off of their strong areas. Unfortunately, the horse won't do very well. Ultimately, it's better to remove these horses from a show string because they'll spend a lot of time being trained opposed to earning money. It's also a pain trying to figure out if they're ready to show or not, moreso if the horse is super strong in one trait.

The exception to this tends to be geldings who've been switched over to another discipline after hitting level 10. Jumping to XC and vice versa. The other two maxed out trait areas are usually more than enough to cover the major weak spot from whatever discipline they were previously in.

Like this guy: levelled gelding

He's levelled up last week but has been shown on the 20th when he wasn't ready to. So he scored very low and not earning money.

For example this guy

If you count his bars in the CC traits (hrt, spd, str) you'll count 10 bars. In order to at least have a chance to be competitive, you'll want to have 12. He had no chance of placing well last week because he just hadn't had enough training for level 2.

This guy is also level 2 in CC and he's got 14 bars in the CC traits. So my guess is that 1) he's ready to show and 2) he's about to level up (at the lastest by next week). So right now he should have the best chances of doing well in shows.

I hope I was of some help. Feel free to ask if I've been incomprehensible at some point.

I can also recommend to take a stroll through the guides in the member help forum. That's how I learned to show.

Moony's Stables said:

I've taken a look at your gelding barn and I have the feeling that you've shown them too early or when they've just levelled up.

Like this guy: levelled gelding

He's levelled up last week but has been shown on the 20th when he wasn't ready to. So he scored very low and not earning money.

In this game horses need to train up in order to be competitive in their level. Once they levelled up, they need several weeks until they are competitive again. With P and E rated geldings I usually give them 5 weeks of training, W rated 4 weeks.

When I have a new gelding who hasn't been trained or shown in a long time, I take his training bars to check whether he's ready to show. If you take a look at the training bars of your horses, you'll see that these bars change with training. To be ready to show you'll want 6 times the bars compared to their level.

For example this guy

If you count his bars in the CC traits (hrt, spd, str) you'll count 10 bars. In order to at least have a chance to be competitive, you'll want to have 12. He had no chance of placing well last week because he just hadn't had enough training for level 2.

This guy is also level 2 in CC and he's got 14 bars in the CC traits. So my guess is that 1) he's ready to show and 2) he's about to level up (at the lastest by next week). So right now he should have the best chances of doing well in shows.

Another thing I like to do with my CC and SJ geldings is to keep track of their hrt trait. Horses weak in hrt tend to do worse in these disciplines than horses strong in it.

I hope I was of some help. Feel free to ask if I've been incomprehensible at some point.

I can also recommend to take a stroll through the guides in the member help forum. That's how I learned to show.

This is actually very helpful, thank you.