(Not so) tack friendly

Sue Sifton is my favorite of Breyer's regular sculptors, and the Smarty Jones mold is one of her best works. This little race horse has great ABC's and a wonderful, performance ready pose. There is just one small thing I do not like about him, but oh boy, that one small thing can cause some major problems! If you've ever tried to put a bridle on Smarty, you know exactly what I'm talking about--it's that little slot in his mane right behind his ears.The purpose of the slot is to make him tack friendly, and it's a good idea in principle. Unfortunately, in actual practice it's not friendly at all. I recently finished this Smarty Jones sized racing bridle. Looks pretty good, right?Here's the problem. To put that bridle on Smarty's head, I had to completely unbuckle both the crownpiece and the throatlatch and slide them out of the left side of the browband. I then had to feed both those straps through the slot, back through the browband and rebuckle them. This is not a quick and easy procedure and it's a lot of wear and tear on the bridle.I hope the owner of this set won't curse me too much every time she tacks up her Smarty model, and I really hope Breyer won't make any more models with this type of "tack unfriendly" hairdo!