The American woman who 'rediscovered' the Caspian horse breed, previously thought extinct for 1000 years, has died, Iranian media has reported.
Louise Firouz, 78, died of pulmonary and liver disorders, Press TV reported.
Firouz, a graduate of Cornell University in animal husbandry, has lived in Iran since the 1950s, on a farm in the northeastern part of the country.
Firouz rediscovered the breed in 1965 when hunting for ponies suitable for a children's equestrian centre in Teheran that she had just set up with her Iranian-born husband.
She found the Caspians living around a remote village called Amol in a mountainous region.
This - their last refuge from extinction - was in the Elburz Mountains at the southern edge of the Caspian, where locals would periodically catch them and breed them as workhorses.
These finely built horses, which reach a maximum height of 12.2 hands, are now known, through DNA testing and other research, to be the forerunners of the native wild horses of Persia, and a key breed in the development of the Arabian horse by the Mesopotamians in the Third Millennium BC.
DNA work by Gus Cothran at the University of Kentucky was crucial in proving the importance of Firouz's discovery, proving that the Caspian breed went back thousands of years, to a time when they were used to pull chariots.
Caspians, which are shown in Persian statuettes dating back 3000 years, are considered a key foundation breed for the hotblood breeds of today. Even the seal of King Darius the Great, held in the British Museum, shows the Caspian horse.
Of the horses initially discovered by Firouz, about 30 were identified as pure, and seven mares and six stallions were bought to form the foundation stock.
Caspians, although small, were found to be horse-like in both temperament and bone structure.
Once critcally endangered, world numbers have now swelled to around 1600, with an estimated 350 in Britain alone.
Iranian horses remained a life-long love for Firouz, who organised numerous national and international horse riding tours in Iran.
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