Barding

thumb|A museum display of a sixteenth-century knight with an armoured horse thumb|Chinese Song dynasty lamellar horse barding as illustrated on [[Wujing Zongyao]]

thumb|246x246px|The Dukes of Brittany (left) and Bourbon on caparisoned horses at a tournament fight (1460s), from Le Livre des tournois by [[Barthélemy d'Eyck]] A caparison is a cloth covering laid over a horse or other animal for protection and decoration. In modern times, they are used mainly in parades and for historical reenactments. A similar term is horse-trapper. The word is derived from the Latin , meaning a cape.