A hand, used only to measure horses, is pretty much equal to 1 dm or 10 cm. Thus a horse 17 hands tall is 17 dm or 170 cm. I wonder if the FFU-ists who continue to use hands realise it can easily be stated in centimetres or is just another name for the decimetre. Just like millibars and hectopascals are two names for the same thing.
A furling is very close to 200 m. So, 6 furlongs is 1200 m. If the US horse racing industry ever metricated, all they would have to do is change the names. Australia metricated its horse racing sport easily because of this. I'm sure most horse racing fans noticed no real change. Euric ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jason Darfus" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, 2004-06-06 02:29 Subject: [USMA:30047] Horse racing > Did anyone here in the U.S. (or elsewhere) watch the Belmont Stakes to see if > Smarty Jones could cinch the Triple Crown? I've never watched horse racing > before but I thought it would be interesting just this once. Anyway, I found > myself laughing out loud but at the same time wanting to yell at the sports > casters. Horse racing must be the last bastion of practice for 100% pure > imperial measurement. So, the track is 6 furlongs and that horse is 17 hands > tall? Hmmm... come again? What the heck does that mean? Under what > circumstances does one decide to measure using their hands instead of their > feet? They still gave the horse's weight in pounds so I'm surprised they > didn't use stones. > I'm sure it's just tradition that these measurements are still used but it > just struck me as funny because I've never heard anyone describe something > using 'hands' and 'furlongs'. > > jdd > >
