PonyIsland

Well as you only had 200k maybe try starting off with not as many ponies then as they level up and you start getting more pg buy more? I dont know, i'm happy with my 20 questers they get me enough pg:)

I honestly think if you are training one full account (like 120-130 ponies) that medium quests are the way to go. I cash out for about 300k twice a week, then again that's close to how much I put in for vetting fees. There is a lot to do with the ponies current levels, that I am still figuring out. But my level 0 guys are quick to cap and don't gain more levels until you just go ahead and spend the levels they already have. The mid-level range seem to get the most xp...
Anyway, it is said that doing hard quests is the most worthwhile, but I seem to feel ponies stop leveling as quickly after they hit about 30 udls in this scheme. So I can do one hard quest per week, or 2 mediums. So it really comes out to making more pg and bp average with medium quests. At least, that's how it works for me.
Sorry if this is incoherent, I'm exhausted DX

PS. I'd like to add that you make a lot more pg overall selling the bp you earn, than from the pg you earn from completing the quest. So be sure to sell some of the bp if not all of it, rather than using all of it yourself. It's they best way I have found to earn pg.

I'm not sure about big time trainers, I have about 650 ponies I train, and I do alright, though I pretty much only do medium and hard quests and some easy ones as well. I push all my 0 level ponies to around 100, and then they seem to take off on their own, and I use large splits, so I can still get lots of UDLS, but so that my 0 level ponies aren't questing with my almost maxed ones either.

I have 2 Million PG that I invest into 132 ponies. I pour all that PG into the ponies, the put them in quests and I can often do a Hard and a Medium quest with the UDLs. Also, if I have less then 20 udl's left I do easy quests for the PG. I even out, PG wise, with around 2 Million to 2.5 Million after my BP harvest. Then I just start over again. It's not that hard once you get the hang of it.

I never do harder than Medium quests and always have more than 250k. I make my own contests so that costs a bit as well as the vetting. I only quest my ponies when they have 15-20+ levels that way there is very few levels to get. I wish you luck in your quests

try testing the pony. i have a bunch who level every contest or ever 2 contest. then i have a few that cant get 1 level in 10 contest.

You can start with any more than 10k , but you need to have the correct amount of ponies for the amount of money you have , be sensible .
Multiple accounts mean more quests which means more money .
Have other projects to make money , adoptiples , AOOCS etc etc.
Be ready to sell ponies if something goes wrong or you get low on PG
Also use the bank as much as possible , quick and easy way to make PG and give you something to fll back on

I think I'm a hard core contester... 2 contests a total of 9 classes, 980 ponies across up to 12 accounts....
Most of my vetting bills comes in, as you said, to about 17-22K per tick, this is with the Elaine pixie which is a must have.
When I quest out an account, I shuffle all the PG minus 150K to my main account, the remainder I leave for vetting.. This gives me about 7 contests before I have to quest that account out again.
I list my ponies by level, lowest to highest. The highest leveled ponies are ready to quest out again by the time I run out of vetting money.
One reason I am able to do this is because I run my own contest, and I can make sure my highest leveled ponies get the maximum experience.
Each of my accounts are sorted by levels, so every one is constantly advancing.
I realize this is impossible to do without having enough accounts, but you can do something similar by shuffling the ponies around your account.
Example:
Order your ponies from lowest to highest. This is because when you're mass signing, you can just click and scroll, and all the lower leveled ponies will be excluded from the contest.
Decide what your cut off point is going to be. Say you have ponies that rank up to 300.. well decide the cut off is going to be level 400.
As your top ponies reach 400, move them to the top of your first stable. When you do this, you are taking them out of the contest, and letting lower leveled ponies rank higher, therefor gaining more experience, which means they'll hit 400 faster as well...
Eventually, those level 400 ponies will start getting put back into play. At this point you can shuffle them back to the bottom of the second account again, or you can ignore them for the time being, and concentrate on leveling the lower leveled ponies in the account.
Sooner or later though, you're going to have to say whatever, and start contesting them again, making the goal 500 or 600...
The lower leveled ponies in my accounts, I don't really worry about, they level as they will.. Mostly they are cannon fodder for the higher leveled ponies to gain experience.
Now if you don't have a arena of your own, you're going to have to look for splits that your ponies will contest their best in, though after a certain point, you're not going to want to put your ponies in splits, you're going to want to put them in unlimited. This is because it can be hard to find the right split, and lots of times those splits aren't full, and I believe it is best to go woth a full class than with the perfect class that isn't full, which is something else to consider .