The drive to preserve the 'hand' is a drive to protect the word 'hand' as a symbol that the user is part of the 'in' crowd of horse person's who understands the jargon of horses; simply recall, or observe, the pride that a young person feels when they first come to know that my horse is something like '15.2 hh'. The use of a 'hand' of measurement is a secondary and different consideration that has to be understood by those who have the responsibility for measuring horses. In this context the word 'hand' and the measurement 'hand' can be easily confused. My guess is that the keepers of the word 'hand' will want to keep the word 'hand' at all costs while the users of the measure 'hand' will simply try to make the measuring they have to do as simple and as clear as possible.
Surely the stud books have to be rewritten to allow for births and deaths of horses, so updating the measures should not be an impossible task as it has to be done each year anyway.
By the way, do studbooks in the USA specify a definition for the length of a 'hand'? Do they use the UK definition of 101.6 millimetres? Or do they use inches? And if they intend inches, are they trying for the 1959 metric inch or are they using one of the older inches such as the old statute or survey inch? I know that there's not much difference, so I suppose I am asking how seriously they take the measuring they do. In the case of the Canadians there is no difference as the pre-1959 inch is the same as the post-1959 inch in that country.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
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on 2005-09-15 22.46, James J. Wentworth at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I know that the Dutch simply record horse heights in meters to two decimal places. I can't imagine any of the UK or US breed societies adopting the 100 mm metric hand of their own accord, as it would require them to re-calculate the heights of every registered mare and stallion. For old breeds such as the Suffolk Punch draft horse, that could mean changing hundreds of thousands of studbook entries!
There is nothing complicated about the original four-inch hand still used in Canada, the UK, and the US--the number after the decimal point simply denotes the number of inches. Hannah is 19.1 hands tall, which is 19 hands 1 inch or 77 inches. It's similar to the descending order English unit notation used by carpenters and plumbers, where, for example, 3 feet 7 inches is written as 3' 7". -- Jason
----- Original Message -----
From: Pat Naughtin <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: James Jason Wentworth <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ; U.S. Metric Association <mailto:[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2005 4:21 AM
Subject: Re: [USMA:34453] Metric US draft horses
on 2005-09-15 01.44, James J. Wentworth at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hello All,Dear Jason,
I just came across an interesting listing on DraftsForSale.com. It's for a huge Belgian mare named Hannah (at 19.1 hands tall and 2450 pounds, she's an equine giantess!): http://www.draftsforsale.com/ShowAd/index.php?id=43012cf2b71d5 "><http://www.draftsforsale.com/ShowAd/index.php?id=43012cf2b71d5> <http://www.draftsforsale.com/ShowAd/index.php?id=43012cf2b71d5>
She is bred to Metric's Rochester out of Lake Ledge Metric, for an April 2006 foal. Now *there's* an outreach opportunity to popularize metric among the rural US population. If the foal is a filly, perhaps her owner could be persuaded to name her "Little Miss Metric" ("Missy" for short). As she grew, she could illustrate how big meters are. She could also become a living, breathing example of how massive a metric ton is. -- Jason
I think that, in the fullness of time, hands for horses will be defined as 100 millimetres.
Currently, the British definition of a hand for a horse is 101.6 millimetres. This is simply a direct conversion of 4 inches of 25.4 inches. (Note: Clearly this definition is based on the 'metric inch' of 1959, as prior to 1959, inches had different values in different parts of the world-- UK inches, USA inches, Canadian inches, Cape inches, etc.)
So we can guess that the horse you describe above (at 19.1 hands) is a little taller than 1.9 metres simply by looking at the first part of the number (19).
The second part, the '.1', is quite a bit more complicated.
Firstly the '.' is not a decimal marker; it is a fractional marker as the 1 refers to 1 finger or 1 quarter (1/4) of a hand; in this case, it is defined as a quarter of a hand or exactly (according to the UK definition) 25.4 millimetres.
The height you have given us for the horse above should be read as:
19.1 hands, which is equal to 4 hands each of 101.6 millimetres plus 1 quarter of a hand (or one finger) of 25.4 millimetres, so the horse is exactly 19 x 101.6 = 1930.4 millimetres plus 1 x 25.4 = 25.4 millimetres and these, added together, means that the horse is 1955.8 millimetres (say 1.95 metres).
As I said it is quite a bit more complicated -- it's not easy being a horse fancier.
The alternative of redefining a hand for a horse as 100 millimetres would mean that this horse would currently be described as 19.5 hands and, in this case, the '.' would be read as a normal decimal marker.
I doubt that this sensible approach will be considered by the horse community anytime soon, as, by their very practice of horse preservation, they label themselves as deep conservatives.
However, to end as I began, I think that in the fullness of time hands for horses will be defined as 100 millimetres.
I also feel strongly that some within the horse community will gradually realise the stupidity of their current position and will gradually change the definition of a hand from 101.6 millimetres to 100 millimetres. I believe that some European countries already define a hand as 100 millimetres although it is more common to simply measure horse heights in metric units directly, and avoid the concept of hands (with their competing definitions) altogether.
Of course, then the entirely arbitrary division between ponies and horses (currently 14.2 hands = 1473.2 millimetres) might have to be rounded to something like 1.5 metres, but that's another whole delicious discussion and argument that the horse community could enjoy for another 100 years or more!
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin LCAMS
Geelong, Australia
61 3 5241 2008
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.metricationmatters.com
LCAMS means that Pat Naughtin has been recognised as a 'Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist' with the United States Metric Association.
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