Talk:Clydesdale horse/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Anheuser Busch

Can someone mention the use of the Clydesdale's in the Anheuser Busch commercials? Rentastrawberry 00:57, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

Exhibition disambiguation

I have removed the link to the dab page, and sent it to Agricultural_show. I think this is right, but if there is a better one on the dab list please feel free to change it. LeeG 13:32, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Colour

"Color and pattern are generally not considered, although coloration should be vivid and white markings ought to be a bright white."

I don't think that this that to say they are "not considered" is accurate. While the Clydesdale Society says that you can't have a good horse of a bad colour, there is an expectation that a Clydsedale will have a body of one colour, almost always with white face marking and white legs and perhaps a little white on the belly, All things being equal, a good bay has the advantage over a roan. And if the horse has more than a little white on its body, then it needs to have good colour distribution, rather than a few odd specks. I am not a judge, or a breeder, but this is the impression that I have gained by looking at British and Australian Clydesdales. In New South Wales there is now a predominace of bay Clydesdales. I don't know what the preferences are in the US and Canada. --Amandajm 08:41, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Someone could just find a rule book (In the USA, most are online) and just explain the rules. Sabino coloring exists in Clydes, so what they do about it in different countries beats me, it's a genetic reality...high white, bald faces AND "roaning" are all different manifestations of sabino. But I don't breed clydes, either, so shall stay out of that dispute other than to say, when in doubt, find a verifiable source. Montanabw(talk) 03:52, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

In Canada, bays are more preferred over blacks or any other color and in order to be considered "show quality" it must have the four white legs slightly above the knee and a large blaze or almost bald face. --Nobodyknows007 (talk) 16:23, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Mixes

In addition to the thoroughbred-Clyde mix mentioned, Clydes-quarter horse mix is becoming quite popular, especially in places like Montana and Wyoming - they're apparently sure-footed in winter in the mountains. I took riding lessons for a year or two on a school horse who was a Clyde-quarter mix - fine horse. I understand, however, there's a tendency to refer to this mix as "bud lite" *shudder*.--Dan (talk) 15:45, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

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

Reviewer: Miyagawa (talk) 21:17, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I will give the article a read through shortly and place any queries below. Miyagawa (talk) 21:17, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

History: Is there a reference for the first recorded use of the name Clydesdale?
Done. This was originally referenced, but got separated from it's source somehow. Dana boomer (talk) 01:39, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
Is there any way of summarising the system of hiring stallions in a single line? If its more complicated than that, then leave it as it is as we don't want to drag the article off topic - but I think that a quick explanation would help the reader's understanding of how the horse spread.
I played with this a little, went to the sources and looked to see if we could clarify it any. Absent looking into new sources on the district system, I think we're at a dead end there. Montanabw(talk) 05:46, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
I found a source specifically on this hiring system, and think I did a relatively good job of summarizing the practice in two sentences. Feel free to tweak, though. Dana boomer (talk) 01:48, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
References: Ref #7 - if The Draft Horse Journal comes in physical copies then it needs to be in italics.
Done. Dana boomer (talk) 01:39, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Had a quick look for other available sources and found one below you might find useful: Heavy horses; breeds and management (1894) - has about 50 pages on the Clydesdale, from page 75 onwards. It presents an alternative origin during the 15th century, although does state that the 18th century origin is more likely. It's got some interesting information regarding the early Clydesdale of the 18th century and you might want to have a look to see if there is anything that is useful to the article. Online version of the Hayes general reference

  • Comment-- This looks like a fun source! (May have WP:PRIMARY problems (?), but definitely has potential to clear up or back up some of our other material) I took a look at the first pages on the origins question (I'm home on the dialup, it's loading s-l-o-w-l-y) and it looks to me like it's the usual thing we run across in the European breed articles...essentially, that people used imported animals to create new types, but breeding for a "breed" per se didn't get solidified and systematized until the 18th or 19th centuries. Though the author does mention on page 75 that Flemish horses had been imported to Scotland at least by the 15th century (in the time of the Stuart monarchs), but the author goes onto page 76 to explain that these animals would have been used for different goals, war, draught, etc., depending on the needs of the given time, and concludes, "...we may safely conclude that the eighteenth century importation of Flemish stallions, if it can be established, has a much more important bearing on our present inquiry." . It reads to me that they basically only got serious about breeding for a tall draft type in the late 18th-early 19th centuries. Within WPEQ generally we've actually been having a discussion of how far back to start with various breeds' ancient ancestry in several articles (in one case, we're debating the Stone Age!). We can sometimes note that such-and-such a horse was probably an ancestor, but absent really good sources of DNA or some other very solid proof of straight-line progression from an ancient form to a modernonw, all we can really say and stay within WP:V is that written records and pedigrees were kept since date XYZ. Montanabw(talk) 05:46, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
  • No problem at all, I suffer from the same issues with Dog Breeds, especially where the origins arn't clear but similar dogs have been around since whatever century. Miyagawa (talk) 18:17, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
  • The Hayes link is to a different edition of the book (3rd vs. 7th revised), and I believe it changed quite a bit in the intervening 70 years, so I'm not going to link to it at this time. I'm currently looking through the other ref for anything that can be added into the article. Dana boomer (talk) 01:51, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
  • No problem, hadn't realised it was a different edition (I thought it was the same year). Miyagawa (talk) 11:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
  • I've paged through the source you provided. It makes good reading for someone really interested in the early history of the Clydesdale breed. However, being written in the late 19th century severely curtails its usefulness. Over the past century, advances have been made in the study of many breeds, especially well known ones like the Clydesdale. When I take this article to FAC (and I plan to, although it's not at the top of the list), I plan to use several books that have been written on the Clydesdale within the past 20-30 years (which I will need to go through ILL for), as they have a much more up-to-date understanding of all aspects of the breed's history. After I include the information from those books, I will go back through this reference to see if there is anything that this book can then be used to back up or clarify that meshes with the views of more modern scholars on the topic. This being said, I have included a brief mention of the alternate origin theory, although I have made it clear (I think!) that it is a very unlikely possibility. If there are any specific areas that you would like me to use the book in (any areas of the text that were unclear?), please point those out so I can study them in more detail. At this point, IMO, the article satisfies the "broadness" criteria required of good articles, although it's most likely a bit shy of the "comprehensiveness" required of featured articles. However, you may disagree with me... Anyway, those are my (rather lengthy) thoughts on the matter :) Dana boomer (talk) 02:35, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
  • That's alright, I just wanted you to have a look to see if there was anything useful you could use in the article. Miyagawa (talk) 11:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:

Looks very nearly there, can't find any issues with the prose and references all look good. Miyagawa (talk) 22:51, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Miyagawa, most of your sourcing questions will have to be answered by Dana, but I'm curious to have you expand on the concerns with the areas where you put a -- were the concerns you raised above the only things that triggered those assessments, or are there some additional things you'd like us to look at? I'll peek at your source, and I'm sure Dana will also, thanks for finding it!Montanabw(talk) 05:29, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Nope, that was just me missing a tag. Fixed it now. Miyagawa (talk) 18:17, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
Article meets the criteria for GA. Good job. Miyagawa (talk) 11:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Move?

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: pages moved per request. - GTBacchus(talk) 22:55, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

– Unnecessary parentheses; the word "horse" is part of the name of the breed, not disambiguation. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:17, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Fine with me. Dana boomer (talk) 11:11, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
If it's part of the name, why isn't it capitalized, and why doesn't the lead say "The Clydesdale Horse..."? Powers T 13:15, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
Wiki capitalization gods periodically go through and remove second caps, not worth fighting about except in rare cases where the lack of capitalization just looks dumb, like "American Quarter Horse." (Easier to stand up for 4 or 5 articles than a hundred or so...  :-P) People in horse-land will speak in shorthand and say "the Clydesdale," but no problem tweaking the lead to add "horse" if that is needed Montanabw(talk) 20:52, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

News story I was reading

http://www.berwick-advertiser.co.uk/news/local-headlines/clydesdales_set_to_take_centre_stage_at_glendale_show_1_1797401

Most of its covered I think but it mentions the first ever Clydesdale stallion show taking place in 1860 in Glasgow. Also mentions use in the Scottish Ship yards which went on on a fairly big scale. Worth putting in any of it?RafikiSykes (talk) 13:39, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Statue

Seeing as popular culture and advertising use etc is mentioned maybe a brief mention of this somewhere? http://www.scottsculptures.co.uk/theworks/heavy-horse This statue of a Clydesdale next to scotlands main motorway is pretty famous and good cc use image here http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/87389 RafikiSykes (talk) 15:24, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

British English?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the English of that nation.

It is named after a region of britain and the breed was developed there so surely that would be classed as strong ties?RafikiSykes (talk) 23:27, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
That's fine - if someone wants to go through and change all of the spellings it's cool with me. The only reason it's in AmEng is that I'm American and write solely in AmEng - when I try to write in BriEng I always miss some and end up with both variations in the article. Dana boomer (talk) 11:07, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
Cool just wanted to check prior to altering anything in a high end article. :)RafikiSykes (talk) 13:08, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
Oops, I reverted before checking talk. Will not be upset if you re-revert -- But you didn't get them all, so if you can't do them all, leave it be instead of doing only half -- or maybe get a Brit to check them for you. Montanabw(talk) 00:15, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

History

There are several huge errors in the history of the Clydesdale breed. 1) Blaze has never been identified as English or as Flemish by any credible source. What is written is that his parentage is unknown, and several guesses have been made. 2) Most Flemish stallion importation stories are unable to be fully substantiated. Many are myths. For full understanding on early Clydesdale Origins read The Clydesdale Studbook: Retrospective Volume, Containing Pedigrees of Stallions Foaled Previous to January 1, 1875 (1878). If we are going to omit the research done by these early breeders and experts, the whole Flemish question should be omitted.

There is also other errors such as: 1)Thinking that the Clydesdale was small and compact. It is true that older Clydesdales were smaller, but the Clydesdale has always been bred for a good amount of length of leg. Compare early 20th century horses like the Baron of Buchlyvie line (Bonnie Buchlyvie, Craigie Litigant ect) to the Continental breeds of the same time period. Keep in mind that the success of the Clydesdale was based on its use for street work. 2) There is a line about how color is chosen over conformation. This is unsourced and ridiculous. No serious breeder is choosing color while breeding for conformation faults. Overall too much attention is given to color to make the article balanced. 3) The section on Irish Draughts is given far too much importance in the article. It is irrelevant to the section of "uses."

Missing material: The sections on showing have been removed and should be added. Showing is what keeps the breed alive and is the main use of Clydesdale horses. A great number of people either attend or participate in Clydesdale shows globally each year.

The section on Clydesdale promotional hitches needs to be added. There is a long history. Anheuser Busch is not the only company that has operated a Clydesdale promotional hitch, Hallamore Transport, Express Personal Services, Wilson Packing and Hawthorne Melody Dairy are just a few of the other promotional hitches. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clydesdale (talk • contribs) 17:35, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, many of the changes you made changed sourced information without adding new sources. All of the information currently in the article is sourced - look for the next source in the paragraph and it should cover the information you have questions about. If you have sources that support the information you give above, please present them and they can be worked into the existing text. Wikipedia requires that information be verifiable through the use of reliable sources - so additional sources are needed for new information to be added. This article is also rated as a good article which means that it is kept to higher sourcing standards than the majority of articles.
With regards to the 1875 studbook, we try to use more modern sources wherever possible. At this point, this book is over 100 years out of date, and the knowledge of the history of many breeds has changed during that time period. What scholars "knew" about various things in the 1800s is often out-of-date when compared to the knowledge of today. The information on buyers choosing color over soundness is sourced (it's currently #7), and the source says "Even soundness is often overlooked in favour of colour.". I do not understand how two sentences on the Irish Draught is undue weight - it is definitely not irrelevant to say they were used for a failed breeding experiment. If you have additional sources on showing and their use in hitches, please provide them. The Anheuser Busch hitch is the most famous, which is why it is given the most room - we don't want the article to turn into a laundry list of hitches, so information on their use overall (rather than providing a bunch of examples with no overarching statement) would be the most helpful. Please do not revert again without discussing - you are adding unsourced information, changing sourced information, and adding out-of-date sources. Dana boomer (talk) 23:02, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that although sourced, the information is either misquoted or taken out of context. Take for example Blaze, the sited source reads: "The next horse of note to have left a record was Blaze, a black 16.1hh stallion with a white ratch on his face, belonging to Mr Scott of Carstairs. In 1782, Blaze won first prize at an Edinburgh Show and did good service in Lanarkshire for many years. Nothing was known of his antecedents, but the impression produced by his shape, style and action was that he was of coaching blood." Now the wiki entry calls him a Flemish stallion and also an imported English stallion. I edited it to say his breeding was unknown, which is a more honest view than myth and speculation. A recent article on Clydesdale origins was published in the 2011 Clydesdale News. The 1875 studbook is relevant as it provides one of the only well researched comprehensive histories of the breed. It is also close to the founding of the breed, and should be treated as an original source. Just because a modern source quotes misinformation doesn't make the source accurate just because its modern. Wikipedia would not say all people of Italy are decedents of Aeneas just because a website in 2009 makes the claim. Part of the problem is that there is not a long history of Clydesdale breed academics, a lot of information is from oral histories and "common knowledge." Sometimes incorrect information is passed down. I myself was a believer in the Flemish horse theory until reading the 1875 studbook. The Bruce Roy article is also taken out of context. Bruce's article warns of the dangers of selecting for color as a sole trait. He notes that BUYERS often ignore roan horses at public sales. This is not a big surprise for anyone who attended a public auction of Clydesdale in North America. But to make the leap that breeders breed just solely for color is a bit of an exaggeration and a broad sweeping claim. More roan horses have won at the two big North American shows than solid bays. This can be sourced through published show results. A roan gelding was the champion gelding at the most recent World Show. Why would listing some of the history of the Clydesdale as a promotional animals be a bad thing? Australia has Carlton and New Zealand Pirongia Clydesdales, both are popular icons. Express and Hallamore are very much in the public eye and don't need a source to acknowledge that they in fact exist. Wilson Packing ran a very famous hitch of Clydedales that also won a lot at the old Chicago International Show, the same can be said for Hawthorne's hitch of blacks. Most people already know that Budweiser runs a Clydesdale hitch, why not inform of the others and a long history that is equally as interesting. It does not have to be more than a paragraph. A paragraph is given to the Irish Draught under USE, taking the same space to talk about the real uses of a Clydesdale is far more relevant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clydesdale (talk • contribs) 16:11, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

All we need for most of your concerns, Clydesdale, are proper sources. See the wikipedia policies linked here: WP:V, WP:RS. We also have to avoid Original research. So if you can provide proper references (for formatting, see WP:CITE) we would be more than glad to review them. Magazine articles, reputable web sites (registries may be good for some information) rule books, breed standards, etc. are all useful sources. Things like blogs, lists of uncollated show results, facebook pages, advertising pages, etc., are not considered good sources for WP. As for listing every last commercial hitch, that's WP:TRIVIA and considered unencyclopedic form. I would agree that breed history research for many horse-related topics is problematic and much of it from oral history and "common knowledge" (which sometimes is true and sometimes is not). Thus, we aren't pooh-poohing your concerns, we are just trying to figure out how to help you provide the material in a way that can be used here. For example, read our articles Thoroughbred, Andalusian horse, Appaloosa or for draft horses, Suffolk Punch, which are of featured article quality, to see what we look for in footnoting and sources -- and let us know how we can help. Montanabw(talk) 23:58, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Clydesdale, I'm confused with your objection to the Roy article information. This article specifically says that buyers prefer specific colors, and as far as I can see says nothing about breeders. It then contrasts this with a statement that breed associations don't discriminate against certain colors. If you have reliable sources with additional information on this topic, please provide them. With regards to the ID information, a paragraph is not devoted to this information. Two sentences are, as part of a paragraph about their use in the development of several different breeds. We can add additional information about hitches and shows - there is no problem with this; we just need reliable sources for the information. I didn't say that giving the Clydesdale's history as a hitch breed would be a bad thing, I said that we need sources, and that an overall source would be better than a bunch of primary sources from individual breweries. I've tweaked the Flemish stuff a bit, as you are probably correct that we over interpreted the source a bit. There are a few books on Clydesdales that I need to get out from inter-library loan that will probably help us to expand the history section, but it's a little ways down my priority list. Dana boomer (talk) 00:26, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

My biggest problem is the quality of sources, many of the sources are attributed to encyclopedic coffee table books. Many of these books have outdated, incorrect, poorly researched information or what was listed above as original sources. A great example of this is "The conformation of the Clydesdale has changed significantly throughout its history. In the 1920s and 30s, it was a compact horse smaller than the Shire, Percheron and Belgian. Beginning in the 1940s, breeding animals were selected to produce taller horses that looked more impressive in parades and shows." Although the author may be an expert on other breeds they clearly are not on Clydesdales. If one looks at Clydesdales from 1900 to 2012 there is not a radical change in conformational type. Height has increased, but that is true for all of the breeds. The author was not measuring Clydesdales each decade. Now what can be sourced is that tall (for the era and compared with other breeds) Clydesdale geldings were dominating the hitch show at Chicago. The height of the Chicago show was 1910 to 1930. Show Clydesdales in the 60s and 70s dwarfed their Percheron counterparts. We can say the Percheron has changed drastically but it is not true for the Clydesdale. There is also information that states that numbers rapidly fell after WWI, this is a tricky claim as numbers from 1914 to 1920 were soaring and were strong in the 20s, the big crash happened after WWII. This can be sourced with annual studbook numbers. My problem with the Roy article and the Irish Draught part, is that we have two thing that now create the idea that there are a lot of leg issues in Clydesdales. The way Bruce's article is used bothers me a bit. As a friend of the author I know he would not want an inference to the general public not savy with the fine details of the Clydesdale market that there is a wide spread unsoundness issue in Clydesdales at public auctions. The point of the article is that roan horses often possess the QUALITY of leg that Clydesdales are noted for and that they have an important part in the breed and should not be overlooked by buyers new to the breed. I will put together blurbs with sources I think are useful, and post them here. As I am a Clydesdale breeder and not a wiki editor I am not fully aware of all of the protocol, but I also have several photos that could be of use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clydesdale (talk • contribs) 22:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for being willing to round up some source material, Clydesdale. That's the main thing we need to move forward. As one of the lead editors of the Appaloosa and Arabian horse articles and a person with some expertise with those breeds, I share your frustration that the general "coffee table" breeds of the world books often repeat troublesome tales (if I see one more article stating Arabs "always" have five lumbar vertebrae, I am going to scream - it was debunked 40+ years ago - some have 5, some 6, and some other breeds occasionally have five; its not consistent. Sigh). But the problem is that breed-specific literature is often harder to come by, when it is, it's often so full of advertising and propaganda that it's unreliable, and for the draft breeds, it's sometimes VERY hard to locate breed-specific information. So anything you can do is helpful! Montanabw(talk) 06:14, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
For photos, go over to Wikimedia Commons (commons.wikimedia.org) and look at their guidelines for uploading photos. Basically, with a few exceptions, the short version is that they must be FREE for God and the Universe; they don't have to be released into the public domain, you can keep a "copyleft" that acknowledges your authorship, but you can't use copyrighted works -- for example, a professional photo of your own horse is not OK unless the photographer releases the copyright, but if you go take some photos yourself, you can easily use them here. (The Appaloosa article is a good example of how we used photos; most were free license from Commons, some were taken by a breeder who graciously released his own photos of his own animals for use at Commons, two we had to jump through a bunch of hoops to use them under "fair use") Montanabw(talk) 06:14, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
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