- Louise Firouz, född som Louise Elizabeth Laylin den 24 december 1937 i Washington D.C., USA, död den 25 maj 2008 i Gonbad-e Kavus, Iran, var en amerikansk hästuppfödare, hästavlare och forskare om hästar. Hon var specialist på den kaspiska hästen och var under sin levnad en av de främsta hästuppfödarna i Iran. Louise Firuz var gift med civilingenjör Narcy Firouz, ättling till den qajariska kungafamiljen och är begravd i Qara Tappe Sheikh i nordöstra Iran.
Louise Firouz öppnade i slutet av 1950-talet en ridskola i Teheran vid namn Nouruz Abad Equestrian Center. Några år senare började hon föda upp hästar. Med stöd från Pahlavi-familjen inrättades 1970 Irans Ryttarsällskap.
Hon var en nyckelperson i återupptäckten av den kaspiska hästen som är en av världens äldsta hästraser. Den kaspiska hästen är bland annat ursprunget till det arabiska fullblodet och antogs dessförinnan ha varit utdöd i 1300 år. Hon exporterade den kaspiska hästen till Storbritannien, USA, Australien och Nya Zeeland, vilket gjort att hästen idag finns i hållbart antal (ca 1 000 djur). Hon fortsatte med sin verksamhet i Iran trots revolution och krig ända fram till sin död.
The British Caspian Trust, som mottagit några av de hästar som hon född upp, har spelat en viktig roll i rasens överlevnad. [2]
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Louise Firouz, 2018-05-08. Article by Ateshe Firouz
Louise Laylin Firouz grew up surrounded by horses. She rode to school along forest trails as a child in rural North Virginia. Life on a farm left an indelible impression on the young Louise and she was never able to live in a city for any length of time. Nor was she ever able to live without horses.
After she married Narcy Mirza Firouz they moved to Shiraz where they bought a 15,000 hectare farm. It was during these years that Louise fell in love with the Oriental horse. Her first horse was a black Basseri stallion. Narcy and Louise would ride through the mountains and plains surrounding their land often encountering the migrating Qashquai tribes. All three children were born during those early years in Shiraz.
After a few years Narcy and Louise moved to Tehran where they had been given a barren piece of land in Norouzabad. It was an empty, rocky desert all the way to the Alborz mountains in the North and to the distant villages in the South. Nonetheless, Louise and Narcy worked tirelessly to develop the land and started to breed horses. Roshan and Ateshé started riding at a very early age and the spirited stallions proved to be unsuitable mounts for such young children.
Louise had heard of a small horse in the Caspian plains and decided to organise a trip with some friends to look for a suitable mount for children. They encountered their first Caspian horse in Amol: It was the size of a pony but it definitely did not fit the description of a pony. It was a perfectly formed miniature horse.
Louise bought her first Caspian horse during this trip, the foundation mare, Alamara. She was the dam of Momtaz-e-Mahal, a mare given to Prince Philip by Louise and Narcy Firouz during a visit to Iran.
This is the beginning of the Caspian story.
Alamara was soon joined by three little stallions brought down to Tehran by an Amoli horse dealer called Mahmad Ali. The first was the liver chestnut stallion, Jehan, who was exported to the USA in 1966. The Caspians were a big success with the children and a market had developed in Tehran. The two other stallions were sold for as riding ponies.
A few months later Louise returned to the Amol/Babol area with Roshan and Ateshé in search of more Caspians. They were rewarded enormously for their efforts returning to Tehran with Loubie and Ostad (Professor). These two stallions were to become the backbone of the breeding program as well as the childrens’ riding ponies.
That same year Louise established a Caspian studbook with a foundation herd of 5 stallions and 6 mares. In the 9 years after discovering her first Caspian, Louise re-established what turned out to be an ancient breed, set up a national studbook, initiated exports and helped form what was to become the International Caspian Studbook (ICSB). Today there are studbooks in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Canada, Scandinavia and a number of countries in Europe.
During these years Louise was able to maintain a breeding program without resorting to crossing back into the same parental lines. One of her greatest concerns, however, was the very small number of horses she was able to find.
https://caspianhorse.org/?p=630
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- Fra The New York Times, 2.juni 2008:
Louise Firouz, Horse Breeder, Dies at 74.
Louise Firouz, an American-born horse breeder who while roaming a mountain range in Iran in 1965 discovered a pony-size Caspian horse, from a breed that had long been thought extinct, died on May 25. Caspian horses were found to be a precursor of modern racehorses.
Mrs. Firouz was 74 and lived in a small town in northern Iran. The cause of death was lung and liver failure, her brother, David Laylin, said.
The discovery of the Caspian, a breed of great antiquity, was a matter of the greatest scientific and historical importance in equine studies, the author Elwyn Hartley Edwards wrote in the 1994 edition of The Encyclopedia of the Horse, which is considered the primary text on horse breeds.
The Caspian was believed to have died out 1,300 years ago.
At 10 to 12 hands (a hand is four inches) and therefore generally no more than four feet high at the shoulder, the Caspian is small, but it is not shaped like a pony.
It has three distinguishing features: an enlarged parietal bone, giving it a raised forehead; a wide scapula, or shoulder blade; and two extra teeth of the upper jaw.
DNA testing performed in the 1990s by Gus Cothran at the University of Kentucky’s Horse Genome Project (Dr. Cothran, a geneticist, now teaches at Texas A&M University) directly linked Caspians to horses of ancient Egypt and Persia, demonstrating that they were precursors of the Arabian and other horses classified as hot-blooded, reflecting their temperament.
Cold-blooded are your draft-type horses; hot-blooded are typically riding horses, like thoroughbreds, said Francie Stull, a geneticist and a co-owner of the Kristull Caspian Horse Ranch in Bowling Green, Ky., which maintains a genetic base for Caspians.
Arabians have a dished face, Ms. Stull added. “When you look at them from the side, their faces curve inward, like Caspians’.”
In 1965, after her initial discovery, Mrs. Firouz went on to find about 30 Caspians during a three-month trek through the Elburz Mountains, south of the Caspian Sea.
Those found in the wild were ragged and covered with ticks and other parasites.
Others were beasts of burden for villagers.
Mrs. Firouz had gone to the mountains after hearing of small horses there, hoping to return with a few to use at the Norouzabad Equestrian Center, a riding academy in Tehran that she owned.
Arabians are notoriously high strung, Ms. Stull said. She was looking for more appropriate children’s mounts.
On that first trip, Mrs. Firouz took back three Caspians. Within a year, she went back and returned with seven mares and six stallions, the start of a breeding herd.
Word of her discovery filtered through Iran’s high society. The country was then ruled by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
In 1971, Prince Philip of Britain visited the shah, who gave him two Caspians. Fascinated, the prince went to Mrs. Firouz’s academy and persuaded her to export some of her rare horses.
Over the next eight years, she exported 29 Caspians, initiating foundation lines for a rebirth of the ancient breed. About 2,000 Caspians are now registered throughout the world, according to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy in Pittsboro, N.C.
Louise Firouz was the first to do the research and recognize that these were descendants of ancient horses, Ms. Stull said. “Although they are still a critically endangered species, due to her efforts they are becoming treasures throughout the world.”
Louise Laylin was born in Washington on Dec. 24, 1933, a daughter of John and Dorothy Laylin. Growing up in the horse country around Great Falls, Va., she rode in fox hunts and on show jumpers. Her father, a lawyer, did work for the Iranian government.
In 1956, during her junior year at Cornell University, Miss Laylin went to study at the American University in Beirut. An Iranian diplomat invited her to visit Tehran, where she met Narcy Firouz, an Iranian aristocrat. They married a year later, after she graduated from Cornell with a degree in animal husbandry.
Mr.Firouz, who owned a construction company in Iran, died in 1994. Besides her brother, David, of Great Falls, Mrs.Firouz is survived by a sister, Laura Nichols, also of Great Falls; two daughters, Roshan Reddaway of Dublin and Atesheh Larsson of Belgium; a son, Caren, of Tehran; and seven grandchildren.
Hard times came to the Firouz family after the Iranian revolution of 1979. Because of his aristocratic roots, Mr.Firouz was imprisoned for six months; Mrs.Firouz was jailed for six weeks. Much of their fortune was seized.
In her 70s, living in northern Iran, Mrs. Firouz continued to ride.
Some years ago, she was mounted on a tall Turkmen horse when it tripped on a mountain trail, dislocating her shoulder.
People said she should stop riding, Mr.Laylin, Mrs.Firouz’s brother, recalled. She said, I beg your pardon. The horse fell. I didn’t.
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Fra The Telegraph, 31.mai 2008:
Louise Firouz.
American-born horsewoman who devoted much of her life to the Caspian breed which she rediscovered in northern Iran.
Louise Firouz, who died on May 25 aged 74, is credited with rediscovering what she called the "Caspian" horse, thought to have been long extinct until she came across it in a remote corner of Iran in 1965; she believed the breed to have been the ancestor of the Arab...
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1933 - 2008 (74 years)
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