Much of the news from Iran these days involves the prospect of nuclear weapons and other stories of the gloomy variety.
But a more heartening one resurfaced recently. Louise Laylin Firouz ’55, AB ’56 (left) died in May at age age seventy-four, and her death prompted several obituaries that outlined her legacy. A longtime resident of Iran, Firouz was roaming the Elburz mountains on horseback in 1965 when she discovered a breed of pony-sized horses. They were some of the few surviving Caspians, a breed thought to have died out 1,300 year ago and later proved to be the precursors of Arabian and other high-spirited riding horses. She went on to inspire a revival of the Caspian breed.
In her seventies, living in northern Iran, 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, according to her New York Times obituary.
“People said she should stop riding,” Firouz’s brother David Laylin ’59 recalled. “She said, ‘I beg your pardon. The horse fell. I didn’t.’ ”
Read more in the Times of London.