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Hello Pat,
In the US, the hand is defined as four inches. I doubt
if any of the breed societies changed to the 1959 metric 25.4 mm inch.
Ditto for the UK. In John Oaksey's 1979 book "Pride of The Shires," there
is a photograph of the Whitbread brewery stable master measuring one of the
Shire horses with a calibrated "hand stick frame" that far predated the metric
inch. Also, the stud books aren't re-written every
year--rather, new volumes are produced.
This isn't an issue of mere academic interest. With the
rising fuel costs, draft horses are increasingly being used on farms (especially
small to mid-size holdings) and for selective tree-harvest logging in
environmentally sensitive areas. Draft mares and stallions and draft
stallions' semen are sold worldwide for breeding, and it would be better for
this equine industry (and equine industry in general) if there was an
internationally agreed-upon way to measure the horses' heights. --
Jason
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2005 1:43
PM
Subject: [USMA:34484] Re: Metric US draft
horses
Dear
Jason,
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,
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
Dear 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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