Sure thing! I'll pm it through to you when it's finished. And you're right, I do mean the player energy.

how much energy does each pet take? Also when the "you hear a herd in the distance" line comes up is it of any significance like should you walk in a certain direction or it's just random?

Each pet takes 10% energy. I couldn't remember it so I did it myself. Perhaps, I hate wasting energy when I can go find dyes to sell or treat items to have on hand and or sell when I have over 50.

https://horsefable.com/horse/1795849

She was 5*. On Orange horse icon. I gave her two pats just to double confirm that it takes 10% energy each time. Gave her one Oat Clover treat and it went up 6%. Went to Oat Carrot? Went up 10% and I knew just giving her Oat/Alfalfa Carrot combos treats would do well enough or she would run away, which has happened to me in the past, nonetheless I got her at 76% and well worth it.

Wow, she is so pretty! Nice job catching her. I love the white TBs and arabians.

And you're right, TBs preferred treat seems to be carrot. You get a bar increase of +5 for carrots alone, +10 for crafted carrot treats and +20 for crafted sweet carrot treats.

I'm pretty sure the "you hear a herd in the distance" line is just random and is one of the lines used to show that you didn't find anything. 

I forgot to mention before that I don't usually try to catch wilds with less than 80% player energy. Like TheDustyAngel said, pets use 10% energy so this means I have 8 to 10 chances to get a horse without costing me any items. I was just checking the player energy use rate earlier and I caught a wild on each of my accounts using just pets alone. Nothing gorgeous like the TB sadly (TBs can be tricky). I ended up with a Friesian (which seem a pretty easy breed to catch), Percheron and QH. Friesian was yellow and the other two were orange.

Thank you! I haven't really messed with TBs all that much in the wild unless they are skewed or somatic. Her was just a gamble/test but I'll have to keep that in mind.

If I remember correctly, when Wilds were introduced for Explore 1.0, drafts and I think the foal variant was much easier to get via petting. Maki, my cousin, has told me a few times when she captured some, she spent most of her time petting the dickens out of them and they usually come; lately she has had to use most of her treats just to get a horse to come to her.

I mostly only go for horses if they seem to have an interesting code art layer when I Inspect them on the website itself, so that tends to help me out a lot more and saves me bunch of treats so I can do more crafting to make and or sell singular treats.

Sorry, I keep switching between my accounts (Pippin, MillieMae and Circe - all named after pet chickens lol).

I do the same as you and tend to focus on the interesting art / genetics too! I've been trying to collect a heap of wilds so I can offer them for stud/brood when they're at a decent level. I got tired of trying to find stud/broods with interesting patterns that weren't low levels or that had really long lines. I figured other players might find the wilds useful too 🤷

I think Maki might be right about the foals and drafts. They do seem to be easier to catch with pets. I wonder if light drafts are the same, because I've always found Friesians & Fjords easy to catch with just pets too.

Obv most ppl have replied and covered all topics here, but I decided to write anyway. 

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Idk if I'm the only one, but whistles genuinely seem to help me. Usually if I stumble across a wild horse I will give it a few treats (like 2-3, 5 at the max) and see what happens. If the horse runs, I guess that's just tough luck. If the meter goes koo-koo (like up, down, and up again) I will try whistling the horse 2-3 times and it usually allows me to catch it around 70% of the time. Idk why 🤷‍♀️ 

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Pets have never rlly helped me at all, regardless of if the wild is green, red, yellow, etc. Most of the time I use whistles & treats bc if I try petting the horse it almost always runs away. I've learned from experience that pets just blow your chances of catching a really good horse. 
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Lassos are wildcards for me. Sometimes I'll catch a horse or two with a lasso, and other times it'll just run away. 

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As others have mentioned, having multiple horses just for exploring is very helpful as you can assure yourself that you have plenty of horses to use when looking for wilds. It can also help lvl a horse, but doesn't give much xp. 

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In conclusion, if you REALLY want to catch a wild. Use treats & Whistles, and make sure you have some horses ready for the journey across hoofbeat plains! 

Thanks for providing that info, it's very helpful 😊

I think what you're seeing with the whistles is that they're more effective on horses with a higher bond. If you're increasing the bond with treats first, then you have a higher chance the whistle will be successful & catch the horse. It's still partly random though, which is why it doesn't work all the time.

Actually no. I caught an ASB yesterday and a TWH today, tried a few treats but ran out almost instantly since i'm low atm. So I whistled them both over (despite the bond being at literally 2% lol) and I ended up catching them both. 

I caught them both such a low bond, so maybe I should stop wasting my bits on treats 🤣