 Horse armour included hardened leather in the ancient world, expanding to barding and even plate armour by the Middle Ages.From antiquity, light cavalry was generally more agile and more lightly protected than heavy cavalry, which used larger horses needed to carry heavier, more reinforced equipment and riders.Between the late 17th and mid-19th centuries, armoured cavalry referred to those cavalry regiments that retained the cuirass, and were commonly known as cuirassiers.