Same here as Targetsmom, for Hunter I use a plain leather, with a plain leather lead. I don't use chains on the nose, although I have used a chain in the past for one horse who needed it. Otherwise, I don't like using the chain, too easy to bump them. I do have one horse that I think I will use a silver accented western style halter on for hunter next year - she uses her front end exceptionally well in hunter (she's really square and very scopey) and I want to draw attention to her front end for that reason, and I think the silver halter will do that.
I have pics on my website (
www.4railranch.com) showing us jumping, if you want to see what I mean (click on J Jay) - she's the one I want to go to a silver halter for. I have the lead what I consider too short there - I'm too close ot her head and pulling her to my side of the jump instead of letting her go to the middle of the jump. But her front end form and scope are wonderful. On Tango's page you can see she's closer to the center of the jump, but I'm running out of lead - that's a 4 foot lead. (I changed leads after seeing pics from that show).
I don't like a 4 foot - if your jumps are 5 feet wide, that's 2 1/2 feet there, leaving you only 18 inches from the standard to your right hand, and across to your left hand, which is pretty short. (I think it looks cleaner using 2 hands). Even if you only use 1 hand, if you "overlift" your hand over the standard, it's fairly easy to "bump" them. We actually practice with a 9 foot, so I can "throw them away" if I need to, and to work on keeping them away from me and into the center of the jump.