Talk:Springbok (horse)

Springbok (horse) has been listed as one of the Sports and recreation good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
July 11, 2011	Good article nominee	Listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on January 19, 2011.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the winners of the 1871 Belmont Stakes – Harry Bassett, the 1872 Belmont – Joe Daniels, and the 1873 Belmont – Springbok, were all owned and trained by the same person?

GA Review[edit]

This review is transcluded from Talk:Springbok (horse)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 02:54, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be reviewing this article. Here are the issues I found:

Couldn't the website refs used just once (i.e. staff, thoroughbred heritage) just have the full ref in the citation rather than in its own separate section?
"He carried 110 pounds (50 kilograms) in the race, which had a winning time of 3 minutes" so does that mean the jockey weighed that much? That reads as if it was a stretch to add in more info, modify it a bit.
The page on American Champion Older Male Horse starts off at 1874. If that was in fact the first award, it would certainly be worth noting that he won the first two.

I'll put the article on hold for a week and will pass it when the issues are fixed. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 02:54, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I could do that, but why? This is more consistent, and just as easy for me to work with.
It means the jockey and his saddle with any additional weight required to get to 110 pounds. It's actually very normal information to include in racing articles - it's part of the handicapping system for horse racing, which adds weight to horses who are considered "better" racers in order to try and equalize high value horse races.
When exactly the awards were begun is something of a muddle - as the article notes - the "official" awards only begin in 1936 - before that there was no official governing body, thus I'm hesitant to go beyond the source in this article - as there may be other horses "considered" to have won the award prior to Springbok .. I've read widely on early Thoroughbred racing history in the US but not enough to be sure that there weren't other earlier horses considered the champion. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:23, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough; on the first one, I just figured it would be easier for readers, but they probably won't care one way or the other. I don't have any other concerns, so I'll pass the article as a GA. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 20:15, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

1874 Champion?[edit]

I know this was raised in the GA review, but I'm very uncomfortable about those awards. The Tb Heritage site says "There were no championships awarded in any official manner until 1936" and then lists "winners" for the previous sixty years! Any idea how this list was arrived at, or when? What does the Hewitt book say? I raised the same point a few days ago on the American Champion Older Male Horse page.Tigerboy1966 (talk) 01:33, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not the slightest clue, but Hewitt definitely says he was awarded the title. It's just a bald "1874 Champion Older Male" or whatever the title is (I'm too lazy tonight to look at the article directly, but Hewitt's listings are all the same - just list the awards, with no explanatory text). Ealdgyth - Talk 01:46, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]