Talk:Secretariat (horse)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Atsme (talk · contribs) 05:08, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	(1) Where was his debut? Suggestion: At age two, Secretariat finished fourth in his maiden special weights race July 4, 1972 at Aqueduct Racetrack. (2) the term "record-breaking" raises question as to what record he broke when he sold for $6.08 mil (3) Trip hazard, "as though a number of his progeny had success at the track" - change to despite his progeny's success at the racetrack, he was most influential as a leading sire of producing daughters, which earned him recognition by in 1992 as the leading sire of broodmares. (4) Change "He is the broodmare sire" to His daughters produced such notable sires as.... (5) Tweaked prose a bit, added inline templates as needed up to "Background" section, (to be continued)... (6) Background - "...who was the leading sire in North America eight times in the 1960s and '70s."<-- unclear - was it between the 60s & 70s, or 3x in the 60s and 5x in the 70s?? ✅ (7) Occurrences of "the Phipps family" after establishing who the family comprises could be referenced as simply "the Phipps" ✅ (8) Reduce first part of section to one paragraph. The last sentence (1st para) is confusing as written, and so is the entire 2nd para. Suggestion: end 1st para with A coin toss determined who received first pick of the resulting foals. Chenery received the 1969 colt out of Hasty Matelda and the unborn foal resulting from the 1969 breeding of Bold Ruler to Somethingroyal. That foal turned out to be Secretariat. had a momentary pause determining why winner got 1 and loser got 2 - assuming mare owner automatically gets live foal?✅ (9) Early years - needs tweaking - Howard Gentry, manager of Meadow Stud, witnessed the birthing and later remarked..., ✅ (10) He soon started distinguishing himself... - The colt soon started distinguishing himself which distinguishes some of the "he" references sandwiched between quotes. ✅ (11) Some time later, Chenery would get her first look. She made a one word entry in her notebook: "Wow!" <-- a bit choppy. Suggestion: Some time later, Chenery got her first look at the foal and made a one word entry in her notebook: "Wow!" ✅ (12) ...worked together to come up with a name for... <-- tighten - worked together on a name for... ✅ (13) Appearance and conformation - 2nd para make prose more concise, TMI detailing physiological aspects of Thoroughbreds in general, strays from focus on subject, and borders on SYNTH, possibly even OR. I liken it to writing an article about Brad Pitt and including a section that describes the physiology of his good looks using SYNTH to justify a theory for why he had a successful acting career. Descriptions of Secretariat's own characteristics citing RS are all that's needed. ✅ (to be continued...) 01:12, 23 July 2016 (UTC) (14) Use of colon between independent clauses: when two or more sentences follow a colon, capitalize the first word following colon. (15) I tried the pretty quotes and they fit well so wanted to suggest them - some editors like them, others don't....✅ Seth Hancock of Claiborne Farm once said, “ "You want to know who Secretariat is in human terms? Just imagine the greatest athlete in the world. The greatest. Now make him six-foot-three, the perfect height. Make him real intelligent and kind. And on top of that, make him the best-lookin’ guy ever to come down the pike. He was all those things as a horse." ” Intended only for this exceptional quote. Looks good. ✅ (16) Racing career - "...occasionally had a tendency to..." a tendency is characteristic of something that doesn't happen all the time, but there's a chance it will; therefore he either occasionally ran to the rail or had a tendency to do it; I suggest the latter. ✅ (17) "...was another important member of the Secretariat team, responsible for his day to day care..." drop the comma unless he was the only one responsible for his day to day care. If the latter, modify it to read "Groom Eddie Sweat, another important member of the Secretariat team, was responsible for the horse's day to day care." ✅ (18) "Chenery would later recall" - to whom? Doesn't fit - wrong tense. Suggestion: During an interview, Chenery recalled that when Secretariat was in training, Lucien once said "Your big Bold Ruler colt don’t show me nothin’. He can’t outrun a fat man.'" ✅ (19) The 3 paragraphs in first part of the Racing career section needs to be tightened - the prose seems a bit forced in order to include quotes, and doesn't flow as it should. Also, check for proper tense throughout the article, and fix as needed, being careful to avoid future perfect tense when it should be past tense. ✅ (...to be continued) 20:53, 23 July 2016 (UTC) (20) Need to tweak the prose that uses the conjunction "though" with present perfect tense "would" and make it simple past for encyclopedic consistency. Example: Change Gaffney though would recall his first ride to Gaffney recalled his first ride 04:20, 26 July 2016 (UTC) ✅ (21) 1972 Two-year-old section - He then ran in the Champagne Stakes at Belmont, for which he was the 7–10 favorite tighten to read He then ran in the Champagne Stakes at Belmont as the 7–10 favorite ✅ (22) Need to keep the correct tense - "Laurin called Chenery at her Colorado home to advise her that Secretariat was now ready to race." Change to: Lauren called Chenery at her Colorado home and advised her that Secretariat was ready to race. ✅ (23) Tense issue again here: "He would later report," to He reported - unless you are actually quoting a phrase, it is important to maintain proper tense. I've found several occurrences of incorrect tense, so I'll give you a few days to make the necessary corrections, and then I'll resume the review. Happy editing! 04:42, 26 July 2016 (UTC) ✅ (24)Check for redundant wikilinks - I've seen some, fixed one - after that is finished, I'll do another thorough read, and then move to the citations. You might want to check your citations for dead links and consistency in author/date formatting. 17:38, 26 July 2016 (UTC) ✅ (25) Suggestion - I tested pretty quotes in Kentucky Derby section and it adds a bit more balance instead of having just one - and it looks nice, too: Sportswriter Mike Sullivan later said: “ I was at Secretariat's Derby, in '73 ... That was ... just beauty, you know? He started in last place, which he tended to do. I was covering the second-place horse, which wound up being Sham. It looked like Sham's race going into the last turn, I think. The thing you have to understand is that Sham was fast, a beautiful horse. He would have had the Triple Crown in another year. And it just didn't seem like there could be anything faster than that. Everybody was watching him. It was over, more or less. And all of a sudden there was this, like, just a disruption in the corner of your eye, in your peripheral vision. And then before you could make out what it was, here Secretariat came. And then Secretariat had passed him. No one had ever seen anything run like that – a lot of the old guys said the same thing. It was like he was some other animal out there. ” (26)Following prose is choppy, lacks flow and consistency with rest of article, a bit reminiscent of The Rest of the Story: The time of the race was controversial. The infield teletimer displayed a time of 1:55. The track's electronic timer had malfunctioned because of damage caused by members of the crowd crossing the track to reach the infield. The Pimlico Race Course clocker, E.T. McLean Jr., announced a hand time of 1:542⁄5.20:05, 30 July 2016 (UTC) ✅
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Having 6 rather short paragraphs in the lead are indicative of news-style; therefore, should be tightened into 4 paragraphs with engaging prose that flows. See Wikipedia:MOS/LEAD #Comparison to the news-style-lede. 01:12, 23 July 2016 (UTC) ✅
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	✅
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	(1)"Turcotte later said that he was proudest of this win because he had to make a split-second decision after the field started slowing down going into the turn. Note: when the prose makes the claim that it was said, add the citation supporting it or add the exact quote.18:19, 29 July 2016 (UTC) ✅ (2)Belmont stakes section - He is moving like a tremendous machine!"[68][69] First source shows "TREMENDOUS machine!" Second source shows "tremendous machine!" no emphasis. See MOS:NOITALQUOTE 20:05, 30 July 2016 (UTC) ✅
	2c. it contains no original research.	✅
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	I ran a copyvio check, and there are some concerns over results that show a high probability. Could I get more eyes on that in an effort to dismiss potential mirrors? 01:12, 23 July 2016 ✅ (UTC)
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	✅
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	✅
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	✅
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	✅
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	All images are properly tagged.✅
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	✅
	7. Overall assessment.	Exceptional work! 20:32, 30 July 2016 (UTC) ✅

References

• The "race at Aqueduct Racetrack on July 4, 1972" is in the body text; I was concerned about having too much detail in the lead per MOS:LEAD but noted 1972. I further refined some of your edits, but do acknowledge that were you jumped in that is a sign that we needed to do things a bit differently. That said, Atsme, remember that as a reviewer, if you do too much editing yourself, you are no longer "uninvolved" in the review. I am glad to see you here because you are a knowledgeable horse person, and this article will benefit from your insights, so don't accidentally disqualify yourself!  ;-) Montanabw^(talk) 23:43, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
• Thank you, M. The term "debut" begged for a bit more information, specifically per GA criteria. I've always been careful when reviewing GA's to stay within the "be bold and fix it" guideline, so no worries in that regard. Please see my notes above regarding the 6 paragraph lead. ^{Atsme📞📧} 14:18, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

• • Tightened the lead, is it better? I looked at the copyvio issue, and of the top five articles flagged (DRF, SI and Blood-horse, ) most of what is flagged are the direct, cited quotations. Do we have too many, do you think? Most of the other stuff popping up are things like the terms of art such as "top of the stretch" or phrases used in the age 2-3 chart, cited to the DRF article, such as "point of hip to point of buttock", etc... don't think much we can do about it other than thin the quotations, but they are all, as far as I can see, correctly placed inside quotation marks and cited. The #4 flag is for a Pinterest page, which contains lots of pictures with captions, no doubt themselves copied. I caught one close paraphrase in the #5 source (American Classic Pedigrees) and tweaked that. I'll get to the other stuff in a bit. Montanabw^(talk) 06:03, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

• • Tweaked the overuse of "Phipps family" a bit. On the leading sire bit, the source sited says only the generic, but checking another list, Bold Ruler was leading sire seven years in the 60s (63-69) and again in '73 (thanks to Secretariat, most likely). So I added an additional source. Better? Montanabw^(talk) 06:24, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

• • For coin flip, I changed to clarify that the loser of the toss got first pick in 1970 (used to say winner got second pick, which isn't quite as clear). Appearance and conformation reworked to focus on Secretariat. Point we were trying to make is that as "pretty" as Secretariat was, that was basically irrelevant to his success as a racehorse. Pretty quotes added but I'm not sure if I should keep the regular quote marks as well. 16, 17, 18 done. 19 tightened a bit. I want to keep some of the quotes to show the reaction of contemporaries, but there may still be too many. LMK Jlvsclrk (talk) 05:49, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Need to fix this: Groom Eddie Sweat was another important member of the Secretariat team responsible for his day to day care. The book, The Horse God Built, focuses on Sweat's relationship with Secretariat. Suggestion: Groom Eddie Sweat was another important member of the Secretariat team responsible for his day to day care. Sweat once said, "Only way that horses win is if you sit there and spend time with 'em. Show 'em that you're tryin' to help 'em. Love 'em. Talk to 'em. Get to know 'em. That's what you gotta do. You love 'em and they'll love you, too." (cite the book, don't make it the preamble to the quote) and make it the lead sentence for 2nd para. Have faith Jlvsclrk - we're on the back stretch!! ^{Atsme📞📧} 21:20, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm enjoying it, even if I do find it hard to prune down my prose style to the appropriate level for Wiki. Onwards! Reworked the Sweat paragraph a bit, with a quote that you can find in the online sample chapter. Jlvsclrk (talk) 02:33, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

That's good news! Ok - I made some notes in the review box for you. ^{Atsme📞📧} 04:43, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Sorry I've been offline a few days, just busy with assorted RL and other stuff, as well as digging out of a watchlist backlog. Changes look good to me so far, what are we missing at this point? Montanabw^(talk) 06:23, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Made some updates. The "would later write" construction is a "polite" past tense that is fairly ingrained in Canada. I don't even notice when I'm using it! Think I got them all Jlvsclrk (talk) 14:48, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

• OK, Atsme I took a whack at what was left and I think we've got it all. I'm doing a little bit of wikignoming along the way. Montanabw^(talk) 03:20, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Great job both of you! The only thing extra I might suggest would be to make the Honors and recognition section more like a bullet list for easier reading but I don't consider it a deal-breaker. All the sources and citations are in order - it's possible I missed something because there's a whole lot there to review, but when it comes to sources Dcirovic does a great job cleaning up after me. If there's anything I missed, he'll find it. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:32, July 30, 2016‎

• Under subpara(15) written by Seth Hancock of Claiborne Farm, that human athlete turned up in 2008: Usain Bolt. Well,almost. He was an out and out short distance sprinter(100-200m). --Moitraanak (talk) 19:46, 19 May 2019 (UTC)