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Show me the evidence where quote unquote live mass negates the affects of mass on energetics?   I agree properly riding a horse reduces effects of mass in terms of torque and concussion.  Practically speaking a well balanced HW can provide less trauma than a sloppy floppy LW, fine, no worries mate, now back to energetics.  That horse carrying a well balanced HW still carried more mass, resulting in increased energy expenditure, heat storage, CV expenditure, etc. Horsie people sometimes want to forget Newtons 1st law, stating that energy is neither creatd nor destoyed.  Hence the large majority of energy used to create work by a machine is lost as heat.  Horsie folk also seem to think the 3rd law of motion (for every action their is an equal and opposite reaction) doesn't apply to horses or is somehow negated by a good seat ("live mass"), unless of course posting approachs the speeds necessary for temporary weightlessness.  If I remember from working at NASA that was approaching the speed of sound.........uh don't think we post at quite that velocity.  When you post you must generate force greater than the force of your bodymass being pulled by gravity (mass X 9.81 m/s2).  Thus each action of posting creates a force GREATER than that of dead mass in a vector from your center of mass to the earth, distributed on the horse..  On descent you create a force slightly less than your mass accelerating back to the earth or you of course slam into the saddle. This is how we control descent or ecentric action.  Great for the horses back but you have not somehow "unweighted" yourself from the horse.  The horse carrying 211 pound is stil essentially carrying 211 poinds.  If the rider has poor balance etc, this will surely increase concussion or torque by moving away from the center of mass.  A rider hanging all over a horse, sorta like my first ride, causes increased energy expenditure by the horse to maintain its balance (and yours), just as bracing against the bit requires a horse to conteract the torque applied to its mouth increasing energy expenditure.  Yes I think horses are magical creatures, but their energetics does not magically defy laws of nature that govern all machine systems.  Sure a good seat reduces strain, all for it, but it does not make a dramatic decrease in the cost of energy required to move that mass.

 

Jon 

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