Welcome back to the Tribe! In this post we are going to go over our Zed Run Breeding Theory! To note, there are several plausible theories and plenty of discovery left in the game, so take this post at face value and make sure to dig into the data and resources yourself to determine your own theory!
Nothing should be considered investment or financial advice. Enjoy the ride!
Zed Run Breeding Theory
While we might not be known for breeding, or really for much in the Zed space, we have been learning a ton over the past few months!
We’ve manage to qualify several horses for most tournaments, accumulated several hundred wins across our stables, bred a couple of ponies, and learned from some of the best in the eco-system.
With all of this, we have decided to start formulating and testing our own theories in terms of breeding. We feel that we finally have an acceptable level of knowledge to do so and share it with you. So here it is – our breeding theory.
Most people might be familiar with the XYZ or Danshan theories, but ours is quite simple.
We don’t worry too much about odds, griffins, or the infamous 1600m indicator of a good breeder.
Why might you ask? Well, we think there are simpler solutions.
Distance Preference And Bloodline
To sum up our theory:
We believe that offspring distance preference and a mix of bloodline are the two most important indicators for if a pair of horses will breed well together.
Lets give an example. Lets say we want to breed two horses from our barn. We are going to choose Idol Meaning and Different Gravey for this example.
Now, there are a few very important things we need to understand before we discuss our theory.
- Distance preference is NOT an inherited trait (If the parent is a sprinter, then offspring will not directly be a sprinter because of the parents distance preferences)
- Distance preference is chosen randomly at birth by the algorithm
- The horse’s variance is also randomly assigned at birth
All of the above statements have either been confirmed, said, or basically agreed upon by either the Zed team or the community.
Now then, what they DON’T say is the degree or type of randomness used.
Therefore, we believe that horses have a HIGHER chance at breeding certain distance preferences out to their offspring that is apart of their DNA if you will.
Choosing A Breeding Pair
Here are some things to consider before choosing a pair of horses to breed.
Obviously, you are going to want a horse with a high base ability, so you are going to want to have a Nakamoto or Szabo somewhere in the bloodline. That is a given.
Our theory also leans on the idea that mixing bloodlines produces the best offspring with the highest degrees of variance. Therefore, we aim to breed our Nak with either a Bute, Finney, or Szabo for example.
Lets go back to our chosen breeding paid Idol Meaning and Different Gravey. Here is an image of their offspring charts:
Here is Idol Meaning’s Breeding chart heat map by distance for his offspring from the Know Your Horses website:
As we can see from the above image, out of 27 offspring Idol tends to breed horses that favor sprinting.
Likewise, lets look at Different Gravey’s breeding chart heat map by distance for his offspring:
Again from the above chart we can see that Different Gravey breeds out a decent amount of sprinters, but has a much smaller sample size of only 6 offspring.
From these charts, especially Idol Meaning’s, we can see how our theory plays out.
Horses have a higher chance of breeding out certain distance preferences baked somewhere into their DNA. While still random, with enough data points we start to see it.
Therefore, if you get two horses that like to breed the same distance preference of offspring, then we theorize that you have a higher probability of getting more base ability into that distance preference from the get go and thus a stronger horse!
Bloodline Importance
The next thing to circle back on is bloodlines. It is quite apparent that Nakamotos carry the most base ability out of any of the lines. Although when it comes to breeding, they can only pass so much on to their offspring.
In our theory we believe that they are limited by their bloodline, just as they are gifted by it. The theory is that mixing bloodlines opens up the ability to pass on base ability to an offspring.
Now we still believe this is random obviously or people could just rinse and repeat the PERFECT pair of horses. But, we think mixing bloodlines gives an offspring a higher chance of being consistently better by having a higher base ability.
What’s the catch then?
Well, the catch is variance.
Variance Importance
The last piece of the puzzle, Ignoring coat colors and lore all together, is a horse’s variance.
Randomly assigned at birth, a horses natural ability to perform well(we mean REALLY well), is vitally important.
For instance, lets imagine a horse can have a maximum base ability of 100. And in any given race, variance determines the amount of that ability that it has access to.
Well, a horse that has the maximum base ability of 100 will STILL suck if it only has access to use 40% – 60% of it on the track. This would be what is considered an A-shaped racer.
Meanwhile, a horse that might be able to access 10% to 90% of its base ability will stomp races and then fully lose some. This would be considered a U-Shaped racer.
This is all determined by variance and is what makes determining the most important breeding variables so difficult to pin down.
Zed Run Breeding Theory Post
Thanks for reading this post on our Zed Run Breeding Theory!
Please remember that this is just ONE theory out of many. We hope people will treat this post as educational and informative as you find and test your own theories!
Well see you on the track!
Cheers
