Talk:Man o' War/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: JohnWickTwo (talk · contribs) 02:39, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Should be ready to start in a day or two. It might be useful to hear why you were drawn to do this article rather than War Admiral, is this horse more famous than the other. JohnWickTwo (talk) 02:39, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Can't wait! As for your question, if asked to name the most famous American racehorses from the 20th century, the list for most people begins with Man o' War or Secretariat, with Seabiscuit thrown in because of the book and movie. War Admiral was Man o' War's greatest offspring on the track, but ranks well below him in most listings. (See for example BloodHorse magazine's rankings: Man o' War #1, War Admiral #13.) I was a fan of Man o' War from even before Secretariat's time though thanks to the books by C.W. Anderson and Walter Farley. I have tried to maintain the correct tone in spite of my fandom but certainly won't take it amiss if asked to rephrase for neutrality. Jlvsclrk (talk) 16:01, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Start process:

0 Lede

See the comments below for more on Upset which could be added into the Lede. Also, it would be nice to mention something about Seabiscuit being in the sons and daughters line here by way of Hard Tack in both the lede and the article.

1 Background

"However, the Belmonts.." to "However, after the war the Belmonts..." You might want to reword some of this war years material for clarity since you also include a 'Two years later...' sentence which makes one wonder if the text is still in the war years or later.

2 Racing career

"...in American history". Is this comment saying up to his own time, or, up to contemporary 2018 times correcting for inflation?

2.1 1919: Two-year-old season

"Loftus asked Man...". Not a big deal but you use "urge" as your preferred verb for this in the rest of this article and you might want to be consistent.

Second paragraph in this section refers to a colt named Urge twice and its hard to see the chronology. Urge had originally beat him in his debut appearance at Saratoga.

In third paragraph make it explicit that Urge beat Man in your wording. See you small note on Urge later in this paragraph also.

2.2 1920: Three-year-old season

Multiple races with Urge appear here again which suggests that some special approach to writing about these two horses history with each other might be of interest to readers of this article. In paragraph 3 of this section, you might say it was the Kentucky Derby explicitly for casual readers of this article who often cannot name the 3 tracks for the Triple Crown. Also look at your wording for "gave him his head" which is fine for track announcements though it could be adjusted a little by a small rewrite in this sentence where it appears.

My further suggestion on the races with Urge is that you might number them for clarity of reference for readers. Tell readers how many times they had met in your paragraph starting with "His connections had...". In the next paragraph in this section try to use this sentence, "Man 'o War was reunited with Kummer replacing Schuttinger."

2.3 Weight carrying

Paragraph appears to work in current form.

3 Race record

Note that Man beats Upset on August 2, 1919 by two lengths, while on August 13 Man loses to Upset.

4 Stud record

Change opening wording to "After his undefeated season as a 3-year old,..." for clarity.

5 Death

My very general comment here is that you consider separating the Death section from the Legacy section so that there is no overlap and that they appear as separate sections. The narrative is generally fine in these following closing sections.

5.1 Honors

See comment above on Death.

5.2 In books and film

You use "titled" for Big Red at the start here, and then switch to "entitled" Man at the end of this section. Pick one or the other, most seem to go with "titled" for books.

5.3 Cultural references

Looks ok.

6 Pedigree

Wording looks ok.

That should allow you start your edits in this assessment. Let me know if you need more details on any of my comments. JohnWickTwo (talk) 16:25, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Response - edits made per suggestions. re (section 1), clarified that the war was still ongoing when Belmont decided to sell the horse. In section (3), added detail for his three most famous rivals - Upset, John P. Grier and Sir Barton - in the margin column Jlvsclrk (talk) 01:14, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Also, while editing the race record section, I noticed a discrepancy between the margin of loss in the Sanford shown in the prose section (a neck), versus that in the table (half a length). I amended both to say "about a neck" with a note that one source a neck while another says half a length. Jlvsclrk (talk) 01:49, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Result: That appears fairly well done and the addition of contemporary racing horses helps quite a bit. In case you have never seen the match race of Man o War you might enjoy watching it here: [1]. If you can figure out how to get this video to work in this article, it might be a nice addition in case you are contemplating going for a featured article at some point in time. As completely optional you might want to try to move the middle of your 3 sequential photos of Man to the left side. Otherwise all the requirements receive checkmarks and the article is promoted. JohnWickTwo (talk) 02:34, 5 February 2018 (UTC)