A ChathAnon Fire Flower
art by Marlow Bisono
And now for those of you that have made it this far down the page I will share the "secret" about winning comps for blupping. 
Basically it's this:
DON'T TRAIN THE TOP SKILL REQUIRED FOR THE COMPETITION.
And don't do the rides that contribute to that top skill either, if you can avoid it. Save all that for after you have your 20 wins.
TRAIN AND DO RIDES THAT INCREASE THE REQUIRED SECONDARY SKILLS.
NOTE: Click the Question Mark on the upper right side of your player page to locate Equestrian Manual at the bottom of the page it takes you to.
1. Go to "Prosperity"and click on that.
2. Go down to "Competitions" and click on that.
3. At the bottom of the page the numbers to qualify you for beginner/rookie comps are listed.
The number I list below, in my ramble, is to be subtracted from the "skills no higher than" one. It is a ballpark one. It will get you moving in the right direction. It is NOT exact. But it will keep you safe.
If you experiment with the number, keep in mind, the lower the subtraction number: the closer you'll move to the kick out point of rookie comps.
EXCEPTION: If you have a horse with an affix from the "Elite" leader board, with those current skills, you can disregard most of the above and following ramble.
WARNING: There are what I call "challenge" horses on Howrse. These are horses that are 0 GP to 2000 GP. They are usually very hard to achieve 100% BLUP with. (Though, that may be just my opinion.) If you are trying to get one of these lovelies blupped, have a team of people ready to go and fill for you; or apply the Athena's Medal when Howrse offers it.
I don't know what else to suggest.
The box on your horse's page to watch is The Skills Box. (the one in the middle of the page with stars in it) and the numbers in the right hand column tell how much skill the horse gains as you train up it's skills. It will also register gain from competitions as you move through them.
If your horse is low-level, and has no inborn skills higher than what's listed in the last paragraph of the Equestrian Manual's Competition section for inborn skills; train up your secondary skills to about 600 points below the number currently listed in the sentence saying "no skills over."
This means you will subtract 600 from the "no skills over" number.
That number you get is the HIGHEST you should train up the horse's secondary skills BEFORE entering it's comps. (horse with Chronos' Timer subtract 550 points from "no skills higher than" number)
Then enter the lowest difficulty comps for low-level.
If you have a high level horse, one that has INBORN skills above what's listed in the last paragraph of EC manual Competition section ; train up the secondaries all the way and enter lowest difficulty comps available to you.
Why do it this way? Because it's fastest and you lessen the odds of losses. You lessen your odds of losing because you are in the lowest bracket of competition available for your horse. And he's set up correctly for it.
Not an opinion. It's a fact.
Need an example? Please view my production sheet. The horse's chosen comp for 20 will have 20 listed wins, and 2nd and 3rd place will have few or zero wins.
If you have access to fillers, either a friend on at the time, or via co-man, USE THE FILLERS!
Get the wins. Get out. Finish up blupping. After a time you will get fast enough to finish a horse in an hour or two. From a foal to a 10 year old.
A dream? No. A reality.
It is possible to enter your horse in comps and just leave it while you do something else for a few hours. However, there is always the chance of someone coming along that is using AUTOCOMP, or looking at your entry, then training up their horse slightly more than yours.
It all depends whether or not you mind having a few do-overs.
THE MECHANICS of BLUP:
The first thing to do for full Blup is....
You must look at your horse's inborn skills and determine which 3 skills are it's highest. (very important if doing cross-breds)
Because without knowing that, you may not achieve 100% Blup by 10 years because you've put time in on the wrong skills.
Which discipline? Which competitions?
Once you determine the 3 highest skills, look at the competitions in both disciplines and see if your horse's skill-set fits neatly into one of the types offered.
If not, you have a breed that will require you to do 2 types of competition to get all the skill gain for blup.
The choice of classic or western is basically determined by the competition/s your horse's skill-set fits best.
Aim for efficiency.
With practice you will have your horse's blup bar at 100% by age 10 years.
things I do when blupping:
I put Heels on my horses because I blup to epic music, (like Two Steps From Hell and Audiomachine), and would end up killing them otherwise.
I always do the mission first off.
I feed right after the mission. Whatever it says for fodder, I also give in oats.
Filler horses receive half the amount of oats of whatever fodder calls for.
A 24 hour clock horse: (has an Achilles Heel)
Mission
Feed
Max out the ride
Stroke,Groom, Carrot, Mash, Drink.
Max the ride
Whatever energy is leftover use for one of the comp's secondary skills (if possible)
After required ride is done ( no more gain from the one that doesn't have the comp's top skill in it ) fill secondary skill bars to the number you got from subtracting 442 from the "no skills over" number in the competition section of the EC manual. Then enter comps and put in filler(s).
A 22hr. clock horse:
The same routine, except the second ride of the day won't be maxed out and will only go as close as possible to 20% energy.
Fill quickly on there. Happy Howrsing!
The 60 points no matter what (if center has carrots) Foal Games:
Groom
Play 2 hours
Drink
Feed what's necessary
Play as long as possible
Stroke
Carrot