“All kinds of reasons. I didn’t know about them, either, but Antonio Rossi had almost brainwashed Sasha about them over the years. That was why she was so excited.” She drew a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll be as brief as I can. The Nisean horse breed was once native to the town of Nisaia, located at the foot of the southern region of the Zagros Mountains in Iran. The first written reference was in around 430 BC in Herodotus’s Histories when the king was given ten sacred horses that were said to have been of unusual size. They didn’t have the smaller Arabian head but a more robust one that was like that of a great warhorse. The Nisean horses were known to be the most valuable horses in the ancient world and the most beautiful alive. The Chinese called him the Tien Ma—heavenly horse—or Soulon, vegetarian dragon. Two gray stallions pulled the shah of Persia’s royal chariot and four others pulled the chariot of Ahura Mazda, the supreme god of Medea and Persia. Cyrus the Great rode a Nisean when hunting lions. The Greeks imported them to the Iberian Peninsula, where they influenced the ancestry of the Barbs and Andalusians, among others. Marc Antony acquired the first Roman Nisean horses when he conquered Armenia.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Sasha could go on and on about their history, but I don’t remember it all. However, you can see that they were once the most desired horse on the planet, and there was good reason for it. Everyone wanted them. During the reign of Darius, Nisean horses were bred from Armenia to Sogdiana. The Greeks, mainly the Spartans, imported them and bred them with their native stock. Not to mention the nomadic tribes in and around the Persian Empire that imported, captured, or stole Nisean horses.”

“If the bloodline was that prevalent, it’s difficult believing it could become extinct.”

“Yet records show it happened in 1204 at Constantinople. But who knows what really happened back then? Someone arbitrarily saying there were no longer any pure Niseans? Still, that announcement might automatically discourage a breeder from keeping the bloodline of his horses pure. Over the centuries, stating it was true could contribute to making it so. But Rossi regarded it as a challenge and spent decades trying to find any breeders who had kept those ancient bloodlines pure.”

“One hell of a challenge.”