Cruppers (horse armor)

Plate metal or leather armor protecting a horse's hindquarters, in complete form consisting of three heavy oblong plates covering the top of the rump and sides and back of the hind legs. Lighter versions consist of several leather straps, often metal plated, which run along the spine to the tail guard, down either side of the horse's flanks, and horizontally below the root of the tail. For the leather straps looping around the root of a horse's tail and fastened to the saddle to keep it from slipping forward, use "cruppers (tail straps)."