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A friend of mine is an artist. I took him racing one day and he had strong views.
He hated plaited manes, esp when paired with a noseband, tho nose-bands were oK with the unplaited mane.
He disliked red or white bridles, white cheekpieces and coloured blinkers.‘They’re beautiful animals, mon ami,’ he protested, “why break up their perfect outlines?”
Cheekpieces do look visually horrid, as do flashy bridles and blinds. Not sure about plaits and nosebands though. The Tom Jones horses seemed to be always plaited along with sheepskin nosebands, with no leather jacket or t-shirt attired lads – sometimes a full three piece suit job with trilby too.
I once spoke to someone who worked there in the early 80’s and it was stand to attention at evening stables with grooming brushes and combes laid out neatly outside. This at a time when that military style routine was beginning to become outdated. Mind you some big achievers served learning time there.
A plain snaffle with either no noseband (on a straight or convex profile) or a basic cavesson (on a dished face) and no braids looks best to me. Keri Brion has most of her horses in huge cheekpieces and I hate it.
It was D Wayne Lukas who opened the white bridle floodgates, you can blame him for that.
I am also an artist. Though I like a neatly plaited mane, a plaited tail if it is a jumper, not so keen on all the Grakle nose bands and they can look ugly. There is a real element of fashion, in the 1970s there were Australian rubber nose bands, not seen as much now. I used to see horses with sharks teeth just brushed in, now there are really elaborate stencils, some look very over the top.
It depends on the shape of the horse’s head/ body and the white markings.
A horse with no white on its face can look better with a coloured browband. A flash noseband breaks up a large Roman nose. Agree grackle nosebands are ugly. A horse with a skinny neck will look better not plaited. But plaits look classy on a chunkier animal.
I use a velvet coloured browband with a dark brown flash noseband. But not all racehorses like/ need a noseband.
Some trainers use a sheepskin noseband on all their runners, to make it easier to spot their horse during a race.
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