Sizing Real Life Things (Carts) to Model Horses

Horses are measured in Hands which is taken from the withers to the ground. Which is not very handy when you have a tiny model horse. But I like math so I figured it out.


First measure the horse from the withers (in Inches)

Truly Unsurpassed is about 7 inches so I'll use that for all my calculations. I'll put the actual math at the bottom and an easy conversion here. This only works for 1:9 scale. To do other conversions see actual math at bottom.

 (height of horse in inches) * 2.27 = height of horse in hands

7 in horse would be 15.8 hands or approx. 16 hands in real world scale

Finding the converted hands of the horse can be useful to use real world fitting charts. Unfortunately the charts will need to be reconverted back to 1:9 scale to be really useful.


And now this will take a distinctly driving turn.







I found this chart from the American Driving Society. https://americandrivingsociety.org/Members/New-Drivers/Driving-Vehicles

If I know Truly Unsurpassed would be about 16 hands, my shafts should be about 80 inches long.

Math:

80 in * (1 ft/ 9 ft) = 8.89 in shafts


Which would be super helpful if someone was making a cart for a breyer horse...






Actual Math!

(height of horse) in * (1 ft / 12 in ) * (9 ft/ 1 ft) * ( 1 hand / .33 ft) = unscaled height of horse in real life.

Example: 7 in * (1 ft / 12 in ) * (9 ft/ 1 ft) * ( 1 hand / .33 ft) = 15.8 Hands

For other scales change this factor, 1:9 is (9 ft/ 1 ft),  1:12 would be (12 ft / 1 ft)