Hello Pat,Dear Jason,
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
I once knew an Australian logger who kept a team of draft horses for retrieving logs from land that was too steep for the tracks on his tractors (above 32 % gradient from memory) and these horses were extremely skilled operators. The horses were tied to an individual log and they then hauled it down a prepared track, presumably prepared to the right slope for the horses. The logs were from plantations of Monterey Pine and Oregon pine, both of which grow very well in the Bright district of Victoria.
At the bottom the horses waited for a human to release them from their log that was subsequently loaded onto a log truck. One of the things that I remember most about this operation was the admiration of the loggers for their horses. The horses were so highly skilled that they seemed to know exactly where to turn and at what speed so as to deposit their log parallel to the others waiting to be loaded onto trucks.
The horse in the meantime had its tackle tied on to its back, and it then found its own way back up the slope for a handful of oats and another log. In the late afternoon, all of the horses were led to their temporary bush stables for a rub-down and an evening meal appropriate to a hard working horse.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin ASM (NSAA), LCAMS (USMA)*
PO Box 305, Belmont, Geelong, Australia
Phone 61 3 5241 2008
Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online monthly newsletter, 'Metrication matters'.
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* Pat is the editor of the 'Numbers and measurement' chapter of the Australian Government Publishing Service 'Style manual – for writers, editors and printers', he is an Accredited Speaking Member (ASM) with the National Speakers Association of Australia, and a Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist (LCAMS) with the United States Metric Association. For more information go to: http://metricationmatters.com
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