Dear John and All, I remember a horse trainer who told me that he used to train his horses with a wire brush so that whenever the horse was touched anywhere near the withers it would cringe in a way that reduced its height. In this way the horse trainer's horses were all the tallest horses in their class. If the difference between a horse and a pony is < 14.2 hh or > 14.2 hh, then it's easy to see how this horse trainer's strategy would work.
I have interspersed some other remarks. on 1/10/03 12:33 PM, John S. Ward at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I, for one, would certainly NOT agree. A hand is already well defined and > unambiguous. Other tricks include the methods used for cutting the horses hooves and trimming the hair on top of the horse's withers. Horse trading has been the preferred home of cheats and rogues for many centuries, and measuring the heights of horses is well polished in the trade. > Having two significantly different definitions (total ambiguity > of about 2.5 cm for a typical hunter/jumper is significant) would create > exactly the sort of ambiguous situation that the metric system is supposed to > be fixing. It's not the measurement but the trade that's in question here. Traders like to buy small animals and to sell large animals � these are often the same horse � so the measurements are altered to suit the trade. > Fifty or a hundred years in the future, Two years ago, a horse-woman friend went to Sweden to attend a major horse show. As she is an ultra conservative when it comes to measures, she was appalled to find that the horses for the show were measured in metres as in 1.4�metres, 1.45�metres, 1.5�metres etc. She found it very difficult to cope with this simplicity. > when the last inches rulers and tape > measures are collectable antiques and only historians remember how many > inches are in a foot, horse owners will probably measure their horses in cm. You may be right, but I would prefer that the Swedish method prevailed � measuring in metres � then hands and metres could readily co-exist for as long as it takes for the equestrian community to catch up with the real world (what am I talking about � these people prefer 17th Century horses to 20th Century motor vehicles!) My suspicion is that a hand will continue to be used, but that it will quietly change to become 0.1 metres, for the simple reason that the mathematics is so easy. Traditionalist rider: My horse is 17 hands Modern equestrian: Mine's bigger than yours � mine's 1.75 metres. > John > > On Tuesday 30 September 2003 18:13, Bill Potts wrote: >> For a growing horse, accuracy is not essential. One could agree that a hand >> is 4 inches or 10 centimeters. But accuracy is essential. It makes all the difference between whether a horse can compete against other horses or whether it is (measured and) defined as a pony, in which case it can compete against other ponies. The actual difference between one class and another ultimately will be less than a few millimetres, and it doesn't matter whether the horse is growing or not. The horse is re-measured (and therefore) re-defined for each meeting. It also matters that 4 inches are defined as 101.6�millimetres. By the time you measure a 13.3 hand pony (for example) it is no longer good enough to say that it is 1.375 metres, because the horse is really 1.397�metres and depending on the slope of the ground � or the mood of the measuring official, this pony might be about to be defined as a horse. >> However, there's some very good stuff on the subject at >> http://www.gov.on.ca/OMAFRA/english/livestock/horses/facts/info_hands.htm. >> Note that it's a Canadian web site. > For another look at this same issue, try: http://www.lovelongears.com/hands.html I particularly like the idea of using a piece of carrot as a calibrating instrument � it should make metrologists proud that their message about accuracy is getting through! Cheers, Pat Naughtin LCAMS Geelong, Australia Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online newsletter, 'Metrication matters'. You can subscribe by sending an email containing the words subscribe Metrication matters to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --
