How to Blup a Horse on Howrse

Last Updated: October 21, 2021

Howrse may be a family-friendly game for all ages, but a large section of the game is devoted to genetics, breeding, and competing to have the best horses. In order to breed the best, you'll need to do best linear unbiased predictions (BLUPs) for your horses to improve the genetic potential of their foals. If you follow the easy steps below, you'll be breeding champions in no time!

Note that if you start your horse over 1 year 6 months, you should just skip the step about doing games with the foal. Don't skip anything more than just the games though, if your horse is over-age.

Steps

1
Realize what BLUP (also spelled as "blup") is, and what it does. The abbreviation "BLUP" stands for "Best Linear Unbiased Prediction". What it does is help the horse pass on GP (genetic potential) to its offspring, and the more GP the horse has, the higher skills it will have when it's fully trained. Please note that fully trained is not fully blupped. To get your horse fully blupped, you'll need your horse to gain 200 points of BLUP (from -100 to 100). In short, your horse will need to do or have the below:
- Skill gains complete in top 3 skills (train, ride, and compete until there is no more gain in any of the top three skills).
  - To check your horses top 3 skills, look at the Training tab on your horse's page. The skills with an arrow by them are the top 3.
- 20 first-place wins in competitions
- Age 10 years or older.
  - Up until age 10 years, your horse will gain a little BLUP each day. Water of Youth does not increase your horse's BLUP. It decreases the rate at which your horse gains BLUP, but allows you to enter more competitions and lessons in before your horse reaches 10.
2
Choose your horse to apply BLUP. It's best to start with a foal, playing with it daily (to increase your foal's skills the full 60 points), and then starting the rides when the horse reaches 1 year 6 months. However, you can start the horse at any age, although the horse will be fully BLUP at an older age accordingly. It also helps to pick a high GP horse to make BLUPing it worth your time.

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3
Register your foal in an equestrian center (EC), and make sure to choose the best one you can afford that has carrots, fertile, clean meadows, and large, clean boxes. Without carrots, you'll have to find specific directions for foal games without carrots.
- Note: Foal games no longer require carrots, and the EC's prestige no longer matters for them.
- Your foal will do its last foal games at 1 year, 4 months.
4
Start going on rides at 1 year, 6 months. Do the rides that will raise your horse's top three skills (if the top 3 skills are Gallop, Dressage, Jumping, do short Forest rides).
- Forest rides increase the Dressage, Jumping, and Gallop skills. Mountain rides increase the Speed, Stamina, and Trot skills. You don't need to concern yourself with beach rides yet, as they appear at age 5 years.
- After you're done with this, you can go on to the next step.
5
Try to find items on rides. The items are Hoof Picks, Combs, and Tubs of Grease.
- If your horse finds a Tub of Grease, drop everything and enter competitions until you lose the Tub of Grease.
- There doesn't seem to be a way to control when you get these items. Just hope for the best.
6
Decide which competitions your horse will excel in.
- Horses' top three skills may not coincide with the skills used in competitions. You'll want to check out which competitions work your horse's top three skills (for a pure Thoroughbred, they will excel in Gallop, Speed, and Dressage, thus being ideally suited for Gallop competitions in the Classical specialty. A Fjord pony, however, excels in Speed, Stamina, and Dressage, making them perfect for Cutting competitions in the Western specialty). Find the specialty that will allow your horse to use its skills to the best advantage, and train the two secondary skills your horse requires.
- Using an Arabian as an example (Stamina, Dressage, Jumping), they are ideally suited for Classical Cross-Country competitions (which use those skills). Thus, you would train in dressage and jumping, but not stamina.
- Using a Paint Horse as an example (Speed, Dressage, Gallop), they are suited to Classical Gallop races (which use those skills). You'd train in speed and dressage, but not Gallop.
- You can tell which skills a competition uses by going to the competition's page.
7
Train your horse in its secondary skills. These are the horse's top three skills, but you're training the secondary skills of the competition it will specialize in.
8
Equip your horse with the best removable (not the Poseidon's Pack) tack you have, and enter him in competitions. You'll need your horse to be doing its most helpful competitions. These competitions will not only give you wins, but will also give your horse a skill gain up to a point. You need these skill gains to BLUP your horse.
9
Continue with whatever your horse hasn't finished in the steps above until they are completed. Then you just have to wait until your horse is 10 (which it most likely is by now). Your horse should now be fully blupped!

Community Q&A

Question

Does my horse need to be 10 before it's BLUPed?

Community Answer

Yes. The three requirements for a fully BLUPed horse are as follows: 1) Be aged 10 years 2) Have the highest possible skills in the top 3 training categories 3) Have 20 competition wins
Question

How can I make my horse get older?

Community Answer

You should be awarded aging points, which look like little gold pyramids. You can feed those to the horse of your choice to age 2 months. There are, however, additional items you can give certain horses at certain times that can increase or decrease the rate at which they age.
Question

My horse is almost 18 years old and he has completed everything to have a full BLUP, yet the bar still says that he needs training. Why is this?

Community Answer

Did you send him on rides? Every time a horse does rides, competitions or missions it gains a few skills. If you didn't send it on enough rides, it won't have all the skills.

Warnings

Make sure you send your horse to bed every night before 22:00, and with 20% or more energy, or the next day they'll have less morale and energy.
- You can ignore this warning if you have Achilles' Heel.
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