Howrse Secret Page Number 3

The link to Secret Page number three on Howrse can be found at the top of the Game Play forum page.

This is achievement/objective number 73. You have to visit the page above and click on the link. 

However, you can only ever visit it once - when you are completing the objective. If you visit it before you have unlocked this particular objective, or try to visit it again afterwards the link won't be there!

Not the right secret page? Read our posts on Secret Page Number 1 and Secret Page Number 2.

The 0GP Project

So, what is the 0GP Project? Basically instead of trying to breed horses with higher GPs (Genetic Potentials), a group of players have done the opposite and tried to breed their horses to get lower and lower GPs.

A foundation horse has a GP of 350.00. If you breed two foundation horses together who have a negative BLUP then the resulting foal will have a lower GP - say 347. If you keep doing this you can actually breed a foal with a GP of 0. And in fact it has been proven that you can keep going below 0 into negative figures. These foals also have negative inborn skills!

To make sure the parents are the worst they can be, they need to be bred at 2 years and 6 months having done no training or foal games. This means that their BLUP will be the lowest it can be and therefore their foal will be the worst it can be (or best depending on how you look at it!).

Breeds to have reached 0GP include Standardbreds and Arabians. If you want to learn more there is a post in the Events Forum dedicated to the 0GP Project.

Lucy

What is BLUP?

On Howrse BLUP stands for Best Linear Unbiased Prediction. This sounds complicated (and in fact if you want to see the maths behind it just Google Best Linear Unbiased Prediction!) but it's actually quite simple. It is a genetic indicator which plays a role in breeding. Basically the BLUP of a foals parents determines how good the foal will turn out to be.

When a foal is born it has a BLUP of -100. During its life your horse's BLUP can reach a max of +100.

How to get +100 BLUP:

• Your horse must be bolded in its top 3 skills
• Your horse must have won 20 competitions
• Your horse must be at least 10 years old

To breed the best foal possible you need both its parents to have +100 BLUP (called fully BLUPPED).

This is how the top breeding groups work. They BLUP lots of generations a day to ensure their horses keep getting better and better and they stay at the top of the Genetic Potential (GP) rankings.

If you breed two horses together with a negative BLUP then the foal will actually turn out to be worse than the parents, with a lower Genetic Potential and no inborn skills. However this is a good thing if you're taking part in the 0GP project!

Lucy

Misaki - the wild horse

Welcome to Misaki, the second wild horse available on Howrse. He's similar to the Spanish Mustang - the first wild horse - but comes from Japan instead of America.

You can win a Misaki in the Potion contest which ends tomorrow (15th March). Currently you can also win a Misaki in lucky Horns of Plenty (again until 15th March).

Once you have a Misaki you'll need to tame him before he can be trained. This is done by asking other players to help you by clicking the button on the Misaki's page. The first time you ask for help it costs 100e. This then doubles each time you ask for help. So the second time costs 200e, then 400e then 800e etc. So taming a wild horse can be quite expensive! After each update this resets to 100e and you can start again. Each time a player helps you your Misaki becomes 1% more tame.

You can also tame the Misaki a little each day yourself.

If you help another player out by taming their wild horse, your Misaki gains 0.4 skills.

The first 100 Misaki's tamed have a higher GP than the others and are numbered from 1 - 100 via an affix.

Misaki's are wild so they do not live in a stable, even when they are tame. This means that you can't put them in the meadow or box, you can't do lessons and you can't put them to sleep at night. You can however do competitions, rides and training with them and they can have a companion.

Also, whilst they are being tamed Misaki's may refuse to do something you ask them to. For example they can refuse to be fed or groomed. If they do this the button you clicked on will shake and they will lose 20% energy. The best thing to do is leave it and try again a bit later!

Once tame your Misaki randomly offers you diamonds up to the age of 80 years old.

So good luck with your taming!

Lucy