Why were the height of horses measured by hands?

Question

Why were the height of horses measured by hands...let's say a horse is 20 hands high?

Answer 1

As mentioned before a hand is a unit of measure equal to 4 inches.  The story behind this unit of measurement is that a man went to measure his favorite horse. Not having a device to measure with, he used the only thing he knew would be consistent: the palm of his hand. Since then, the hand has been the unit of measure for equines. The letters HH or hh after the numbers stand for Hands High. The single letter H or H may be used, standing just for "hands".

Answer 2

Horse height  referred to by a unit of measurement known as a "hand." One hand is equal to four inches.

horse lover

Answer 3

In researching this, I couldn't find any real explanation as to why (other than the obvious) and it was anecdotal.  I would suppose that many folks in the past didn't have any sort of graduated measuring device, so it was more expedient to use the width of the hand as a standard.

Answer 4

The hand unit of measuring is very old. It originated at a time when most people did not own tape measures or marked measuring devices and so the hand was used as a measuring unit and the each measured hand then converted to equal 4 inches. It is just something that has come from days of old and has become the traditional unit in measuring horses. But times have changed and almost everyone has a tape measure now. So use a tape measure, measuring from the ground to the highest tip of the withers, and then divide the inches measurement by 4 to convert the measurement to hands. But remember hands are always in whole numbers or a whole number plus .1, .2, or .3, but those numbers after the whole number are not fractions, they are inches. Example: 60 inches equals 15 hands but 61 inches equals 15.1 hands, likewise 62 inches equals 15.2 hands and 63 inches equals 15.3 hands.