I collect trophies, divines and retired coats

edit: dropping wind horse stuff here so I have it on hand

There are a number of factors that go into the drop rate

First of all if you do get the divine, you MUST put a water of youth on it immediately, it doesn’t affect the drop rate at all but it does double the amount of time you can earn gifts (therefore doubling your gifts) before the horse is too old

(Spoiler tags to take up less space)

Wind strength:

The wind strength is a bar with 100 points that can be filled by riding over the ocean

The amount of points you get per ride is different each day, and ranges from -1 to 7.

(with scores -1 and 7 having a 6.25% chance of appearing each day and scores 0 to 6 having a 12.5% chance at appearing each day, it will show this under the bar)

What this means:

If you want to get gifts more frequently and don’t care so much about how long you’ll be getting gifts for, you would then want to work your horse more frequently.

If you want more gifts total and for the perk to last longer then you would skip days that will earn you less points.

Recommendations:

I personally have found a nice middle ground by only working the horse on days earning 4 or more points unless I can fill the bar that day with a lower amount.

For those that want to earn more frequently, I wouldn’t recommend working on a day earning fewer than 3 points because it won’t really speed you up that much, but if you’re really in a rush you could do 2.

I would not ever recommend working on a 1, 0, or -1 point earning day that is a scam

For those who want more gifts in the long run I would suggest 4 to 7 point days or 5 to 7 point days, don’t wait for only 6s and 7s though it’ll take weeks

Rides over the ocean per day:

You should add Achilles heel and Philotes’ stroke, these paired with an EC with a water trough and a shower will allow you to ride over the ocean 4 times a day

If you have a decent number of pastry horses you can give the divine Croesus fortune and a kairos dial and feed it in increments of 1. Each time you feed it it has a chance to find a sugar cube (+3 energy) and if you find enough you can squeeze in an extra ride over the ocean (5 rides per day)

METHOD:

1. Groom, feed (1) oat, if you don’t find sugar, feed (1) oat then ride over the ocean for 1 hour

2. Mash, feed (1) fodder 12 times or until the energy bar reaches 83%*, whichever comes first

3. Feed (1) oat until the energy bar reaches 96%**, feed (1) fodder unless the bar is higher than 96%

4. Ride over ocean for 1 hour, carrot, feed (1) fodder until maxed out, feed (1) oat until energy bar is at least 94%

5. Ride over ocean for 2 hours, stroke, stroke, water, ride over ocean for 1 hour

It is important if you do this to keep a close eye on the horses weight, as they are prone to getting too fat, a way to prevent this is by entering low energy competitions on days where you are unsuccessful, or by feeding them only oats (still in (1)) on days where you don’t need 5 rides to fill the meter.

*(optional) if you reach 83% using only 6 or 7 fodder, feed up to 8 (still in increments of 1 though)

**(optional) actually somewhere between 96.0% or 96.4% you can check by going into the competition page (but NOT entering) or if the energy bar jumps from 94% straight to 96%, the latter is the faster method

DISCLAIMER: you have to have quite a few pastry horses for this to be viable, I have all of them and I can pull this off most of the time, it also takes a while so it’s not for everyone, I find it worth it but you might not.

NOTE: this also works on Nordics and Solars, with a much higher success rate too, but the exact method differs.