7th Cavalry nosebands, a bit of detective work!

The Pony wars commission for Mark is coming along nicely and I have just opened the last box of 100 mounted Plains Indians as I finish off the February batch of 60. Mark has collected 240 mtd and 100 foot warriors plus the first troop of 20 7th Cavalry.  I have another troop of 20 cavalry painted plus 60 more Indians. There remains around 100 more mounted Indians, 80 US cavalry and 67 civilians/cowboys that I have here and the specially commissioned dismounted cavalry that are being sculpted and cast for the project.

I mentioned early on in the project that the Native American Indians rode their ponies with just a single rein running along one side of the neck as correctly featured on the Qualiticast horses, often braided rope. No nose or cheek pieces or headbands ( and of course no saddles or stirrups!).

As I was painting the second troop of US cavalry a couple of weeks back I became aware that the horses were cast minus nosebands  and that I had painted the first troops as such. Given the high level of detail on the castings I could not imagine this was an error but determined to do a bit more research on the subject. Mark has supplied numerous Osprey books on the subject and in all of the illustrations the cavalry horses are depicted with nosebands whilst in contemporary illustrations it's difficult to tell but some clearly do not. In reply to my previous 'Custer' post Rob posted a link to a painting of the man riding into battle in his blue cavalry shirt with piping and a red neck scarf as a suggestion for the dismounted figure. What struck me was the fact that the horse was depicted minus noseband! As the work looks well researched I'm taking this as further evidence that this is correct and as sculpted on the metals horses. I will need to do more research around this but if anybody out there knows about these things do please let me know.