Talk:English Channel (horse)

GA on Hold

Two-year old campaign 1. English Channel made his first start at the age of two in a 1 1/16 mile maiden race on the turf at Saratoga.

• in this sentence, he made his "start" in what? That needs to be further addressed.
  

2.Ridden by John Velazquez, English Channel got off to a slow start in his first race, running midpack almost throughout before showing an explosive finishing kick and pulling away to break his maiden by a length in his first time out.

• this sentence is a bit confusing. Where it says "almost throughout", does it mean throughout the race?
  
• Also "before showing an explosive finishing kick and pulling away to break his maiden by a length in his first time out", can this be reworded or clarified, what does a finishing kick and pulling away mean in terms of horse racing? The same applies to "to break his maiden".
  

Three-year old campaign 3.However, the Secretariat would not be his race. After a long duel at the front with Purim, English Channel was overtaken by Gun Salute, who had been stalking the leaders in third.

• the first sentence, is it really necessary? Can that be taken out and reworded to something along these lines At Secretariat, English Channel lost..after a long..etc.?

4.Frustration hit again in the Turf Classic Invitational at Belmont Park. Making his first start against older horses, English Channel lost by a head bob to Shakespeare after a side-by-side back-and-forth battle to the wire.

• What does head bob mean in this context?
• The first sentence should be reworded, as it sounds as if the owner of the horse has written the article. Can it be more among the lines of He [English Channel]] was unable to win at the [event].
  

Four-year old campaign 5.After a two-month layoff, English Channel shipped to Churchill Downs to once again try to win a Grade I stakes. Unlike his last three attempts, however, English Channel would not be denied in the Turf Classic Stakes. Running third throughout, English Channel again kicked it into high gear when he hit the stretch, engaging in a stretch dual with Cacique.

• For readers who are unaware of the subject, the term "stretch" or "stretch dual" needs to be further explained.

6.In his next race, English Channel's backers picked the worst possible year for him to make his first attempt at the Arlington Million.

• As I noted above, this sounds as if it were written by the owner of the horse, the line "picked the worst possible year for him to make his first attempt", needs to either be reworded or cut out.

7.Pletcher ran English Channel in one final prep before the Breeders' Cup, the Hirsch at Belmont. After missing the win in 2005 by a headbob,

• Again, the "headbob" term needs to be addressed.

Five-year campaign 8.The entire contingent ran terribly, with English Channel running the worst race of his career, finishing in 12th place.

• The word terribly should be replaced with another word, terribly sounds biased in this sentence.

Tables

• Even though it is sourced in the article, the table should be sourced again. (For the races section table) Also the Pedigree also needs to be sourced.

'Overall Words like frustration and exploded should be replaced with words like, his losing streak continued or he continued his loss, and for exploded it can be replaced with "ran". The lead (like the template says) needs to be expanded, mayby 1 or two sentences more. Overall the article is good, but these problems above should be fixed and addressed, once these problems are addressed notify me on my talkpage.TrUCo-X 19:28, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I fixed the concerns about the short lead and the phrase "broke his maiden". I think that the references section could also use some work, as they should each have a title, publisher, url and accessdate. I'm not sure what format references 2-4 are, but more information about them is needed as well. GaryColemanFan (talk) 21:07, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The template to use to format the references is located at Template:cite web. Also, only the first word in all the headers should be capitalized. Nikki311 21:38, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

GA Failed, in a two week period, there was no reply or edits to improve it in order for it to become a GA, thus not passing, mayby in the future this article may be able to pass if these above comments are addressed.3L VaK3r0 00:18, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

NPOV rewrite

I have gone through the article, replacing the more emotive ("explosive") and specialist ("rated") terms with more neutral ones. This makes it more of an encyclopedia article, although inevitably, some of the original "flavour" is lost. It's quite difficult, as we racing fans tend to get emotionally involved and treat horses as if they had human qualities. I have been doing the same with some of the articles I started, where I seemed to be addicted to the words "dramatic" "battled" and "emphatic"! Tigerboy1966 (talk) 15:26, 1 September 2011 (UTC)