Horses of Hoofprint Bay is a horse management game where you get to build your dream horse farm, care for your horses, and take part in exciting riding competitions. You start with a small stable and a single horse, but as you progress, you can expand your farm, breed foals, hire staff, and discover new riding trails.
In this post, I will explain everything you need to know about Horses of Hoofprint Bay, including horse care, training, competitions, breeding, and farm management. Whether you are just starting your journey or want to improve your existing farm, this guide will help you understand the important mechanics and make better decisions.
I will also cover how to earn money, increase your prestige, unlock new locations, and build a successful horse farm. So, let’s get started and explore everything Hoofprint Bay has to offer!
Horses of Hoofprint Bay Guide – Horse Care, Training, Breeding
Horses of Hoofprint Bay is a single-player horse management game developed by Thogli Studios and published by The Mane Quest. It features hand-drawn 2D graphics and combines farm management with horse care, breeding, training, and riding.
The game uses different perspectives depending on what you are doing:
- Top-down view for navigating your farm and the town.
- Close-up scenes for interacting with horses and exploring buildings.
- Side-scrolling riding sections for training, trail rides, and competitions.
Most management activities use point-and-click controls, while riding requires you to control your horse’s gait and jump over obstacles.
HoHB is a premium game, meaning you purchase it once and play without microtransactions or season passes.
Getting Started in Horses of Hoofprint Bay
Choosing Your Starter Horse
When you arrive at Hoofprint Bay by ferry, you must choose your first horse from 10 available starter mares.
All starter horses have the same basic stats:
| Stat | Starting Value |
|---|---|
| Age | 60 rounds |
| Strength | 30 |
| Endurance | 25 |
| Confidence | 100% |
The main difference between the starter horses is their coat color and pattern. You can therefore choose the mare whose appearance you like the most without worrying about starting with a weaker horse.
One of the starter mares also resembles the original starter horse from Mein Pferdehof, making it a fun reference for players familiar with that game.
Customizing Your Character
You can customize your character’s appearance using different face shapes, hairstyles, and clothing options.
The customization system includes:
- Different face shapes and hairstyles.
- Adjustable skin tone and hair color using gradient sliders.
- Separate everyday riding and competition outfits.
- Additional clothing that becomes available in the town shop.
- Mod support for adding custom faces and clothing.
You can also create custom colors through the game settings.
Customizing Horse Colors
HoHB includes several horse color presets, including Default, MPH, and Rainbow.
Each horse has two color values: one for its coat and another for its mane, tail, and legs. You can create and save your own color presets as well.
Changing the active preset affects all horses in your save file, allowing you to give your entire stable a different appearance without changing each horse individually.
Understanding Your Horse Farm
Your farm is the center of your management activities. From the farm overview, you can access your stable, pasture, main house, breeding station, riding arena, parking lot, yearling paddock, and trails.
As you progress, you can upgrade these buildings to improve your horse capacity, unlock new features, and increase your farm’s prestige.
Stable
Your stable initially consists of a small shed and a makeshift paddock that can house four horses.
You can upgrade it to accommodate up to 20 horses. Each upgrade adds another stable group and improves the appearance of the building and horse care screens.
Remember that upgrading your stable increases your daily running costs, so expand when your income can support the additional horses.
Pasture
The pasture is connected to your stable and provides access to outdoor space for your horses.
You can open or close gates to control which stable groups have pasture access. However, the pasture does not increase your stable capacity.
If your pasture is a lower level than your stable, some stable groups will not have access to it. If it is higher level, the extra pasture capacity remains unused until you upgrade your stable.
Main House
The main house contains several important facilities:
- Office for farm management.
- Library with detailed gameplay information.
- Dressing room for changing your character’s appearance.
- Staff management and hiring options.
Upgrading the main house unlocks additional staff and management features.
Breeding Station
The breeding station allows you to breed your own horses and offer stud services to customers.
As you upgrade it, you can unlock additional breeding features, including collecting and freezing semen for later sale.
Parking Lot
The parking lot is important if you want to transport horses to competitions or the breeder.
You must upgrade it at least once to own a horse trailer. Further upgrades increase trailer capacity, allowing you to transport more horses to competitions.
Riding Arena
The riding arena is required for training your horses and is one of the first buildings you need to construct.
Upgrading the arena unlocks additional training courses, new obstacles, and more attractive training backgrounds.
Yearling Paddock
The yearling paddock provides a separate area for young horses.
When fully upgraded, it can hold up to 13 yearlings without using your regular stable slots. This is especially useful once you begin breeding horses regularly.
Horse Care Guide
Taking care of your horses is one of the most important parts of HoHB. Every round, your horses’ needs change, and neglecting them can reduce their trust, strength, and endurance.
Feeding and Watering
You must provide hay and water for your stable groups through the farm overview.
Grain and treats are given individually through the horse care screen.
Your horse’s body condition indicates whether it is receiving the correct amount of food:
- Green: Healthy body condition.
- Lower orange area: Your horse is becoming hungry.
- Upper orange area: Your horse is becoming overweight.
If you fail to feed your horse for several days, it can become malnourished. On the other hand, excessive feeding can lead to obesity.
Exercise and overnight time reduce body condition, so you should balance feeding with regular activity.
Grooming and Cleaning
Horse cleanliness is represented by visible dirt patches rather than a progress bar.
To groom your horse, select the appropriate brush and move it over the dirty areas. Keeping your horses clean is important for their welfare and competition performance.
Confidence
Confidence determines how comfortable your horse is around you and during riding activities.
You can improve confidence by:
- Scratching your horse’s favorite spot.
- Giving treats.
- Completing confidence training.
- Successfully jumping obstacles.
- Praising your horse after planned gait changes.
Confidence can decrease if you leave your horse untrained for too long or repeatedly fail obstacles.
Each confidence-building method has a daily limit. Training is particularly important because it allows you to increase confidence beyond the second confidence marker.
Strength, Endurance, and Exercise
These three stats affect your horse’s performance.
| Stat | Description |
|---|---|
| Strength | Determines how well your horse handles demanding riding and jumping activities. |
| Endurance | Affects how quickly your horse loses strength while riding. |
| Exercise | Represents current stamina and determines how much training your horse can handle. |
Strength and endurance have individual potential limits that can be improved through breeding better horses.
If you train your horse beyond the red exercise warning, it will become exhausted the following day. Always check your horse’s condition before starting another training session.
Horse Personality Traits
Each horse can have one or more personality traits. Some traits are inherited, while others must be discovered through interaction or veterinary examinations.
| Trait | Effect |
|---|---|
| Hard Keeper | Requires more grain. |
| Easy Keeper | Requires less grain. |
| Snacky | Gains more confidence from treats. |
| Cuddly | Gains more confidence from scratching. |
| Neat Freak | Gets dirty less often. |
| Mud Lover | Gets dirty more often. |
| Sure Footed | Has a lower chance of injury. |
| Injury Prone | Has a higher chance of injury. |
| Good Mom | Gives foals better current confidence, strength, and endurance. |
| Good Inheritance | Produces foals with better potential. |
| Bad Inheritance | Produces foals with worse potential. |
| Rebellious | Randomly changes gaits even at full confidence. |
| Energetic | Tends to speed up and requires more exercise. |
| Chill | Tends to slow down and requires less exercise. |
When breeding, pay attention to the traits of both parents. Inheritable traits can pass from either parent, but opposing traits cannot both be inherited by the same foal.
Illnesses and Injuries
Horses can develop different illnesses and injuries that require appropriate treatment.
Common conditions include:
- Cuts and infected cuts.
- Abrasions and infected abrasions.
- Lameness.
- Saddle sores.
- Tendon injuries.
- Malnutrition.
- Laminitis.
- Thrush and hoof abscesses.
You can treat many conditions using supplies from your house pharmacy, while more serious problems may require veterinary care.
Always check your horse’s medical report and use the correct treatment. Ignoring injuries can lead to worsening health, additional expenses, and a loss of prestige.
Boarder Horses
Taking care of boarder horses is an important way to earn money.
You can find available boarders in the office under the Boarders binder. The number of available requests depends on your prestige.
Boarder horses occupy stable space, so you must decide whether the boarding income is worth giving up space for your own horses.
Types of Boarders
| Boarder Type | Requirements | Daily Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Part Board | Provide stable space, hay, water, and mucking out. | 50 |
| Full Board | Provide grooming, hay, grain, and medical care. | 90 |
| Schooling Board | Provide care and train the horse to the required confidence, strength, and stamina levels. | Around 90 plus a one-time schooling fee |
Schooling boarders can be particularly profitable, but they require more work and careful training.
Make sure you fulfill the owner’s requirements before the horse’s stay ends. Neglecting a boarder can reduce your payment or result in a fine and loss of prestige.
Riding Guide
Riding is a major part of HoHB. You can enter riding mode through the training arena, trails, or competitions.
There is no freely explorable open world. Instead, each riding activity loads a separate side-scrolling scene with a defined start and finish.
Riding Controls
You control your horse’s gait using the arrow keys and jump using the spacebar.
The available gaits are:
- Walk
- Trot
- Canter
- Gallop
Your horse loses strength while cantering, galloping, and jumping. It regains strength when moving slower than a canter.
Endurance determines how quickly your horse loses strength, so horses with higher endurance can handle longer and more demanding rides.
Jumping Mechanics
Jump height depends on your horse’s current gait.
- Canter produces a higher, shorter jump, which is useful for taller obstacles.
- Gallop produces a lower, wider jump, making it useful for water obstacles.
You must choose the correct gait and time your jumps carefully. Jumping when your horse lacks sufficient strength increases the chance of refusals and falls.
Managing Confidence During Riding
Horses with less than full confidence may try to change their gait automatically.
You will see indicators showing whether your horse is about to speed up or slow down. Press the appropriate direction key during the warning window to prevent the unwanted change.
Certain personality traits can make these changes more frequent, even when confidence is full.
Training Your Horse
Training improves your horse’s performance and helps prepare it for competitions.
Riding Arena Training
The riding arena offers several training types:
- Lunging
- Show jumping
- Cross country
- Caprilli
These activities generally focus more on strength than endurance.
Some courses are marked as competition license training. Your horse must successfully complete the appropriate course before entering a competition in that discipline.
Trail Training
Trail rides focus more on endurance than strength.
You can also give your horse exercise without increasing its strength or endurance through activities such as walking, confidence training, and free lunging.
These activities are useful when you want to improve confidence without exhausting your horse.
Avoiding Exhaustion
Keep an eye on the exercise bar during training.
If your horse reaches the warning marker, consider ending the session or switching to a lighter activity. Training beyond the red marker will cause exhaustion the next day.
Competitions
HoHB features four competition levels:
| Level | Abbreviation |
|---|---|
| Beginner | B |
| Novice | N |
| Intermediate | I |
| Advanced | A |
You must win each level with a horse before entering the next higher level in the same discipline.
The available disciplines include Caprilli, Show Jumping, and Cross Country.
Caprilli is the easiest competition type and is suitable for starter horses. Show Jumping and Cross Country become more challenging as you progress, often requiring horses with better stats and training.
Competition Tips
- Train your horse for the correct discipline before entering.
- Manage strength carefully during the course.
- Choose the right gait for each obstacle.
- Avoid refusals, falls, knocked rails, and missed gates.
- Keep your horse clean and wear appropriate competition clothing.
Competitions feature randomly generated obstacle sequences, so you need to adapt your riding strategy each time.
Winning competitions earns money and prestige, helping you unlock more advanced content.
Giving Riding Lessons
Giving riding lessons is another way to earn money.
During a lesson, you must correct the rider’s posture by adjusting their legs, hands, and torso. The mistakes become more subtle at higher lesson levels.
Correcting posture mistakes improves the lesson score and increases your payment.
Beginner lessons are easier because you do not need to correct hand position yet.
After upgrading your main house, you can hire Julia to give lessons using horses assigned to her. Lesson horses still need regular training and care because they lose strength and stamina over time.
Breeding Guide
Breeding allows you to produce foals and gradually improve the quality of your stable.
You can breed your own mares and stallions or offer stud services to customer mares.
When selecting breeding horses, consider:
- Strength and endurance potential.
- Inheritable personality traits.
- Competition achievements.
- Pedigree and bloodlines.
- The mare’s maternal traits.
Traits such as Good Inheritance and Bad Inheritance can affect a foal’s potential. Good Mom can improve a foal’s current confidence, strength, and endurance.
As you upgrade your breeding station, you can collect and freeze semen to sell later, creating another source of income.
Farm Management
Managing your finances is essential because every building and horse creates ongoing costs.
Your farm can continue operating even if you run out of money, but recovering can be difficult without healthy horses and reliable income.
How to Earn Money
Here are the main ways to earn money in HoHB:
| Activity | Income |
|---|---|
| Completing quests | Rewards vary. |
| Giving riding lessons | 30–130 per lesson. |
| Boarding horses | Daily fees paid at the end of their stay. |
| Competitions | Prize money for successful placements. |
| Stud services | Starting at around 100 per live cover. |
| Selling horses | Well-trained young adult horses can sell for several thousand. |
One useful strategy is horse flipping. You can buy an untrained horse, improve its stats and training, and sell it for a higher price.
How to Save Money
Your main expenses include:
- Daily building running costs.
- Hay, grain, and treats.
- Medical supplies and veterinary bills.
- Rider clothing and horse equipment.
- Purchasing horses.
- Building upgrades.
- Staff salaries and training.
- Competition entry fees.
- Stud fees when breeding.
Avoid upgrading every building immediately. Focus on facilities that help you earn money or unlock necessary progression.
Prestige and Progression
Prestige represents your farm’s reputation and determines how much content you can unlock.
You can increase prestige by:
- Completing quests.
- Upgrading buildings.
- Maintaining a healthy financial balance.
- Improving your best horse’s stats and competition levels.
- Winning competitions.
- Successfully caring for boarder horses.
You can lose prestige through poor competition performance, welfare problems, neglected boarders, and entering competitions with dirty horses or improper clothing.
Important Prestige Unlocks
| Prestige | Unlock |
|---|---|
| 10% | Advanced Forest Trails |
| 25% | First tack shop upgrade, including items such as ear bonnets. |
| 30% | Beach Trails |
| 40% | Mountain Trails |
| 50% | Custom-colored tack |
| 66% | New clothing in the store |
Prestige also improves the quality of horses offered by the breeder and increases the number of available boarder and stud requests.
Hiring Staff
Staff can automate parts of horse care, training, and riding lessons.
You can hire staff through the main house, with additional employees becoming available as you upgrade it.
When hiring staff, consider their daily salary, horse capacity, and the tasks they can perform. Staff can save you time as your stable grows, but their salaries should fit within your farm’s budget.
Quests and Progression
Quests guide you through the main progression systems in HoHB.
Early quests introduce basic horse care, grooming, and training. Later quests ask you to prepare horses for Caprilli competitions, host boarders, purchase additional horses, and breed foals.
As you progress, you will encounter more demanding objectives, such as breeding horses with complete pedigrees or producing valuable semen.
Quests reward you with money and prestige, making them one of the best ways to develop your farm during the early game.
You can also discover hidden items during trail rides, adding extra exploration objectives to your daily activities.
All Trail Locations
HoHB features several trail areas, each offering different riding experiences and progression requirements.
Home Forest
The Home Forest is available from the beginning and contains short, beginner-friendly routes.
- Forest Walk
- Mushroom Trail
- Mossy Trail
Advanced Forest
The Advanced Forest unlocks at 10% prestige and features longer routes suited for endurance training.
- Lush Leaves
- Waterfall Ride
Cross Country Forest
The Cross Country Forest contains a specialized training course.
You must win the Novice Cross Country competition to unlock it. The upgrade costs 2,500.
Beach
Beach trails unlock at 30% prestige and offer sandy routes along the coast.
- Beachside Stroll
- Public Beach
- Through the Dunes
Mountains
Mountain trails unlock at 40% prestige and feature more challenging routes.
- Mountain Hike
- Mountain Peak Trail
- By the Ravine
If you are just starting HoHB, focus on building a stable foundation before expanding too quickly.
- Take good care of your starter mare and keep her confidence high.
- Complete early quests to earn money and prestige.
- Build the riding arena as soon as required.
- Train your horse for Caprilli before entering competitions.
- Upgrade your parking lot when you need to transport horses.
- Accept boarders only when you have enough space and time to care for them.
- Keep an eye on daily running costs before upgrading buildings.
- Breed horses with strong stats and useful inheritable traits.
- Use trails to improve endurance and arena training to improve strength.
With careful horse care, smart financial decisions, and consistent training, you can turn your small starting stable into a successful horse farm in Hoofprint Bay.