What Does “How many hands a horse is” mean? A hand is the unit of measurement used to measure horses. A hand is equal to four inches even. A horse is measured, on level ground, from the ground to the bump that joins the back and the neck (called the withers).
If a horse is said to be 15 hands, that means 15 x 4 = the horse is 60″ tall, or 5 feet.
Often you will see height expressed with a decimal point- that a horse is 16.1 or 14.3 the decimal point refers to an extra inch- or three- that don’t even out to a full hand. So a horse that is 14.2 is fourteen and a half hands- 14 hands (56″) + 2 inches. It is never correct to say a horse is 15.75 or 15.25 hands, horses height can only be expressed in their measurement divided by four, with the remainder shown behind a decimal point.
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