I was watching the Travel channel yesterday and they had a program about people that build monster trucks for tractor pull competitions. He boasted that he had four engines in his rig that generate 14,000 HP and can drag 60,000 pounds against the ground.
That was pretty impressive but I was thinking that if you really had 14,000 live, medium sized horses hooked up together somehow, you could do much, much better than that. Likewise, I don’t think a one horsepower motor would do very well powering a carriage with several people in it or plowing an uneven, rocky field. Horses have, and continue to do all of that.
I know the definition of a horsepower unit of measure.. What I want to know is how that compares to the work that an actual horse can do and why they choose the standard that they did?