Wikipedia:Peer review/Lightning Bar/archive1

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I'd like to take the poor pony to FAC at some point, but would like to make sure it's not full of horseperson's jargon or glaring ommissions that make it difficult to comprehend for the non-specialist. I'd also like feedback on any and all prose issues. Thanks!

Thanks, Ealdgyth - Talk 00:24, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: This reads well and is interesting to this reader, who knows little about horses but is learning. To be considered comprehensive, the article might need a few more details about Pollard and Parker as well as quarter horses in general. The link to American Quarter Horse is helpful, but it might also be nice, for example, to learn without clicking that these horses excel at sprinting. I wondered if that quality (rapid acceleration and short bursts of high speed) makes them good at roping or whether Lightning Bar was simply unusually versatile. If you take this to FAC, the shortness of the article and its small number of references is sure to raise questions, and adding more sourced background for the general reader might be one way to address this.

Lead

I don't think it's a big issue, but it might be nice to include. I was thinking of human biographical articles, and I've seen the life-span pattern in horse bios like Twenty Grand (not an FA). Just a thought. Finetooth (talk) 20:37, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Early life

  • "but injuries and bouts of illnesses kept him from racing past his two-year-old year" - Could this be altered to "past the age of two" or would this change the meaning? My thought is to avoid the repetition of "year".
    • Nope, it doesn't change the meaning and I've changed it.
  • Would it be helpful to include a bit more information about Art Pollard and Dink Parker. Most readers will have no idea of who they were. I'm guessing that both owned ranches in Arizona and that both had significant experience with horse racing, breeding, and related matters.
  • "He was a sorrel colored horse." - I think this needs a hyphen; i.e., "sorrel-colored", or you might recast it as "His color was sorrel."

Racing and show career

Breeding career

  • "or the fee charged to breed a mare to him, was $250 ($1,982 as of 2009) but only nine mares were bred to him" - To avoid repetition, could other words be substituted for either "to breed a mare to him" or "nine mares were bred to him"?
That's a toughie. The best I can come up with is "only involved nine mares". Finetooth (talk) 22:12, 16 December 2009 (UTC)'[reply]
I can't think of one either, and Roget was no help either. I think we're just going to have to have the repetition. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:43, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "108 of his foals started races" - If you start a sentence with a number, it should be written out as words.
  • "His offspring earned $1,163.32" - Rounding to the nearest whole dollar would be OK and would make this easier to read.

Death and legacy

Note

Citations and References

  • Citation 4 uses yyyy-mm-dd format for its date, but the first reference uses m-d-y. Pouncers will pounce at FAC and require one or the other but not both.
  • "North Pomfret, VT" - I think the state names should be spelled out for foreign readers.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. Finetooth (talk) 01:07, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]