I dont know about anyone else but I don't look at anyones pages to read anything. I find a horse I like and send a request and they either accept or they dont. 

So far I havn't listed any horses for private breedings. If I team up with someone that has the same breeding goal as me I will probably do so for them to use for cheap (notice that this is not a request for such team at the moment I'm content to work by myself).

It's rare that I send breeding requests for private horses. Often there are no expanation about what the owner want from the horse you breed to theirs and than it's so annoying when the breeding fails and you have to send a new request. I ususaly think that the private breeding only is for their breeding partners and search for another horse.

I would suspect private would be used for clubs most often. I would also suspect that people with rare breeds to use it more heavily than others (keeping lines pure rather than allowing mixed breeding to further limit offspring).

In my case, I use it currently and only for preventing too many foals to be born. I have in the past, let mine open for anybody until about 6 or 7 foals, then will shift it privately and will limit it to high level matches only.

When I do this, I always put the notes of what I'll allow, on the horses notes. Anybody can see the notes of the horse, so if they visit the horse, they won't need to click elsewhere for breeding rules. This also allows me to apply different breeding rules for different horses.

Occasionally, I'll get an odd request that doesn't follow what I suggest, but it seems more often, the request-ee does find the notes and read them. Well, maybe, maybe not, could just be coincidence that their horses at least meet my rule-minimums.

Not many people appear to use the horse notes though. When I co looking at horses, it's almost like I'm the only one that does.😅 But they're helpful for me.

It would be better if auto-send features for failed breedings could be an option. That is one feature that muffs us up the most, in my opinion. I'd also like auto-accept options for meeting certain conditions and this option would allow for rebreeding of failed breedings, as well.

It's been suggested.

In the beginning I did not want any crosses from my Thoroughbreds, don't ask why but that was a me thing. Afterwards, I let them go public and cared not. Now if I set them to private, it's due to their levels, roughly level 80 and up with one being over 100. Granted over 100 can cover even a basic level 1 horse for the training boost, I simply only wanted mares to be bred to him that were level 50 and over; I managed to get some of my mares to level 100 and bred them to him and got training boost of 20 and for future foals, I simply wish to keep that trend going.

I only use the private setting when I've worked out a Club breeding request or a breeding request on a horse that wasn't up for stud/brood and only wanted that one person to breed to them.  It's too much of a hassle to accept the breeding, especially as half the time they no longer have energy by the time I'm able to accept the request late in the day.

:I do it mostly to limit the number of foals my horses have - I don't want one particular line to become oversaturated in my herd or in the market. Once a horse has 5 foals total, I shift it to private breeding only. Once a horse has 10 foals I take it down entirely.

Once a horse is up for private breeding, my decision is based on the level of the requesting horse. And I try to put the requirements anywhere I can - on my player profile, on my stable page, and in the horse notes.

The general guidelines are:

• Appaloosas: within 10-ish levels of my horse
• Percherons: within 15-ish levels of my horse
• Sugarbush Drafts:
  • if requestor is a non-Sugarbush: within 20-ish levels of my horse
  • if requestor is a Sugarbush: within 20-ish levels of my horse, or level 50, whichever is lower
• Other Crosses: within 20-ish levels of my horse

I always put the exact threshold in the horse's notes, now that they're visible.

I have no idea when/why I picked this up, but I assume by default that if a horse is up for private stud/brood (for a "normal" price), that the owner wants to only breed it with horses within 10 levels, and that if it's up privately for, like $1 or 1 ingot, that it's probably for a breeding partner or something.