"Measuring a horse in hands".
In English, when referring to a how tall a horse is, we say, the horse is (how ever many) hands high. How would you translate the below statement into Spanish.
"how a horse is measured in hands?"
I had this on the English word of the Day. I know it isn't correct.
This is an illustration of how a horse is measured in hands.
Esta es una ilustración de cómo se mide un caballo en las manos.
Any help is much appreciated.
I'm adding Annie's comment for clarification.
"For ease of management, 160 cm is about 16 hh, and 140 cm about 14 hh. 14.2 hh is the limit for ponies, after that they are small horses."
4 Answers
Hi Rac, a bit of trivia... the terminology was 'born' when horses were being sold at public auction and the buyer or seller didn't have a measuring stick. They would turn their hand sideways and measure with their hands from the top of the withers to the bottom of the hoof, placing their hands one on top of the other but sideways. If you turn your hand sideways, it measures roughly four inches and that is how four inches came to represent a 'hand'. It still works 
I would not translate the expression in that way. Wikipedia suggests that the hand is a unit of measure used in English speaking countries including, UK, USA, Aus., and Can. Europe seems to use metric measure, so metres and centimetres, Since communication means the transfer of meaning from a sender to a receiver, a hispanohablante will probably have much better reception of the message if it is sent in metric.
What do others think??
Un Andalusian de 14.5 manos.
Los caballos se miden en manos y dedos, cada mano representa 4 pulgadas.
