War Admiral is one of the best-known Thoroughbreds in American horse racing history due to the dominance the animal displayed during its heyday in the 1930s. Among the many accomplishments War Admiral accomplished, winning the coveted Triple Crown in 1937 It is the main of his successes. To this day, winning the Triple Crown is a feat that has only happened eleven times in the history of the sport.
The beloved horse known as War Admiral was born in 1934 and came from very good stock. The colt was the product of a successful breeding between an accomplished racehorse named Man o’War (a former Preakness Stakes winner) and a mare named Brushup. Although War Admiral had a very large sire (Man o’War was 16.2 hands), War Admiral was considered short by racehorse standards at 15.2 hands tall, a full hand shorter than the sire of the. By contrast, the average horse competing in elite competitions like the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes is 16 hands tall.
The terminology of measuring height in terms of hands is still used in the sport of horse racing, although it is rarely understood by outsiders. The actual conversion is that one hand equals four inches. Therefore, a horse that is 16 hands tall is five feet four inches tall. This is the height when the animal is on all four legs and not when it is standing on its hind legs. The proper notation for a horse that is five feet one inch tall (61 inches) is to write 15.1 hands. The correct way to write 15 and a half hands tall is actually 15.2 hands (not 15 and a half or 15 hands and two inches).
An accurate measurement of a horse’s height involves measuring a straight line up (vertically) from where a hoof touches the flat ground to the highest point on the animal’s back. The highest point on a horse’s back is known as the withers, a term meaning the space between the shoulder blades on a four-legged animal. To clarify, when measuring a horse’s height, the head and neck are not taken into account at all, as the standard comparison is basically comparing horse heights based solely on how high their shoulders are off the ground without take into account the size of the neck and head.
The 2003 movie Seabiscuit incorrectly depicts War Admiral (the dominant horse of the Seabiscuit era) as being 18 hands tall. This theatrical adornment exaggerates the horse’s height by 2.2 hands, the equivalent of 10 inches. Anyone familiar with horses understands that exaggerating a racehorse’s height by two and a half hands (2.2 hands correctly spelled) or 10 inches makes a significant difference, as the fit goes from describing a racehorse to small size to describe a large one. For comparison purposes, consider the difference between describing a basketball player as 6’10” tall when his actual height is 6’0″. By NBA standards, you are effectively describing a player who is in the bottom ten percent in height as one who is in the top ten percent in height.