Watching Belmont undercard and pre-race and it seems like quite a few more horses than I would expect are wearing flashes. I guess I don’t really think of those as ideal for racing because of the potential to restrict airflow. Am I totally unobservant and this is normal, or are there more than usual?
Flash nosebands have been popular for quite a while. Pletcher runs all his horses in a white flash bridle, like Baffert runs all his in a blue shadow roll, more for visibility/identification than actual purpose. It doesn’t hurt, of course…if it did, they wouldn’t have so many winners. 
Other trainers have copied the flash idea, but it’s also popular because it might give the rider more control to rate or steer, if the horse can’t open its mouth and hang. Rubber fig 8s are also used (by Asmussen in particular), but they’re more awkward to use than a flash. Most nylon race bridle fig 8s are the sliding kind (not with rings as you see on jumper bridles) and also slip around and hard to fit, compared to a flash.
I, too, was taught that a flash could inhibit breathing, but judging solely on the success of horses who wear it (in racing and 4star xc), I don’t think it bothers the horses much!
Back in the day (ca Man o’ War’s day and before and after) a lot of horses ran in open bridles (no cavesson).
Fashions change, IDK why. I don’t like flashes, which are a relatively recent add-on, even in dressage.
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I know right?
The Europeans don’t do tongue-ties either. They just have the the snaffle bit placed up. I’ve noticed that Shug Mcgaughey does the same with the Phipps(sp?) horses.
WHY would anyone want a nosebase on a racehorse that might constrict nostrils?
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The Europeans most certainly do do tongue ties. They also use figure of eight nosebands quite a bit.
Horses inhale through their noses.
A flash noseband will not restrict breathing. It should attach to the noseband on the bridge of the horse’s nose, which is hard bone, and then wrap around just in front of the bit. It does not restrict airflow due to the presence of bone and cartilage.
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Please show me a ‘racing photo’ with them having tongue-tie.
I am sure you are right, but I have never seen one.
What it ‘should be’ and ‘what it is’ are two different things. Sadly.
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Here’s a good one of a black tongue tie, making it very discreet:
Thank you Texarkana for that link. But that very rare, wouldn’t you agree?
I have never seen one on a ‘racing’ Euro horse. Be they racing in US, France or GB.
Could they just be using them for training?
I would not say “very rare.” I would say less common than the US, but certainly not “very rare.”
Of course, I am not an expert on international racing. Yet I see them “enough” to know they utilize them.
Perhaps you could show us a picture where a flash is restricting a racehorse’s breathing.
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What? Really? If a drop or a figure-8 is below facial bones and cartilage all channels that go up into the nostril bones into skull sinuses; (sorry can’t recall what their clinical name), it will impede breathing.
You can pick any number of pictures yourself.
How did TB racehorses survive hundreds of years with no tongue-ties? Without white nose-bands?
That was when the quarter-horse trainers came in 1980s
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They were slower.
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If you look at where the bit rests in the corners of the horse’s mouth, you will see that there is bone above it, so it’s impossible to have the noseband just in front of the bit AND restricting breathing. You’d have to do some kind of wonky thing to tie the noseband around the nostrils and right by the chin to restrict breathing, and I think it would slip back.
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Some old pictures just for fun:
1959 Kentucky Derby:
http://www.galleryofchampions.com/products-page/kentucky-derby-1948-75/1959-kentucky-derby-tomy-lee/
Is that a tongue tie on Tomy Lee? My eyes might be deceiving me.
1966 Kentucky Derby winner Kaui King (I think this was in the Preakness) and another horse:
http://darkroom-cdn.s3.amazonaws.com/2015/05/BIQ-383-BS_F-760x490.jpg
Those are definitely tongue ties. And a flash on Kauai King.
Well before Quarter Horse racing influence…
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OK. Got it. Thank you Palm Beach.
But some trainers never use it, but others always do?
I’ve never a Phipps horse with one (I never saw Shug use one; of course that doesn’t he hasn’t.) The Janneys’ Ruffian had a simple big ring-bit pulled near molars, as did Orb, as do many Europeans
Iron Leige working in the 1950s:
https://thevaulthorseracing.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/iron-leige_those-earshi.jpg
Fly bonnet, Irish Martingale, and is that a Kinenton noseband hooked behind bit guards?
Well … that’s training not racing. And why the ear-pieces look badly photo-shopped?
