Louise Firouz, was an American-born, Iranian horse breeder and researcher who 'discovered' and helped to preserve the Caspian horse, a breed believed to be the ancestor of the Arab and other types of what are called "hot-blooded" horses, and previously thought to have been extinct for 1,300 years.
10 Facts About Louise Firouz
2.
Louise Firouz hoped to become a vet, but she failed her physics course and studied classics and English at Cornell University instead.
3.
Louise Firouz moved on to a private school in nearby Peterborough but still had to drive her mare Rhoda to Hancock, put her in the church stable and take a taxi for the next 12 miles, repeating the process each evening.
4.
Louise Firouz soon found others, many in poor condition, but she was struck by their resemblance to the horses depicted on the rock relief carvings on the ruins of an ancient Persian palace at Persepolis near her Shiraz home.
5.
Louise Firouz acquired six stallions and seven mares and founded a breeding herd.
6.
In 1974 the RHS took complete control of Louise Firouz's remaining horses, then numbering 23.
7.
Louise Firouz had to sell her silver and jewels to feed her family during this time, but she gradually rebuilt her life, and was eventually able to establish a new herd of Caspian and Turkoman horses.
8.
Nonetheless, in 1989, Louise Firouz was invited to inspect those horses that survived for a possible Caspian breeding stock.
9.
Louise Firouz formed a new herd of Caspians on behalf of a friend, German Businessman John Schneider-Mercke.
10.
Louise Firouz died on May 25,2008, at a hospital near her home in northeastern Iran.