Mongol leather horse armour-neck protection

[cataphract]

On www.mogultravel.com (go to mongol shop and dolls) a great figure made of leather, wool,... of a mongolian warrior can be seen. The warrior himself is wearing an interesting leather neck protection and his horse is wearing a great leather horse armour.
I knew wealthy mongols used metal horse armour. Taking in account the price of such a metal horse armour, the use of leather horse armour is very assumable.
Is this figure historically correct?
Can someone tell me more about mongolian leather horse armour and how it would have been constructed?
Also the metal chamfron (in the form of a cow's head?) the horse is wearing is very interesting.
I'll try to post a photo of the figure later on.
Greetings

Cataphract

[Temüjin]

i've never seen this type of horse armour before. you are right to say that only the richest noblemen could afford metal horse armour but on the other hand, the leather armour doesn't add much to the defense and is perhaps more of a burden for the horse and slows down horse archers significantly. the style of neck & throat protection i've seen before.

[cataphract]

I agree the leather armour could be a burden for horse archers who had to move very quickly, but (as in this case) for warriors who used the lance also it could have provided(if stiff enough as in the case of the figure itself) sufficient protection for the horse.
Is the neck and throat protection of the figure made of a few rows of hardened leather?
If we may believe the historians, the mongols settled about 800 AD. Can anybody tell me how these early mongolian warriors would have looked like? I assume they must have made much more use of leather defences/armour as later mongolian warriors.
greetings
cataphract

[erdene]

d**n thats expensive....I have one in my room....cheaper version

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

I have seen miniatures that have depictions of such type of neck guards, but this one might be a bit exaggarated or stylised.

The Secret History of Mongols lists horse armor among Jamuqa's war equipment, but it does not tell us whether it was leather or iron/metal.

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

Here are the warriors from that nice collection:

[snafu]

Those are awesome. I wish I had the money to buy them all.