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Sloan beefing up fair sales
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By Lynne Phillips
Times-Junction Staff Reporter
 He was traded for a coon dog. The horse traded for the dog was Quinn, and she is a chestnut colored thoroughbred quarter horse cross.
Today, she bears absolutely no resemblance to the starved, disease ridden, beaten horse she once was. The sores on her feet are long gone, as are the lice and the skin fungus which left her nearly bald.
Quinn is nearly back to her original weight of 1,700 pounds and looking good. Her step is quick and lively and her fair performance pretty good for all she has overcome.
 “Even when she was physically worn out, her eyes still sparkled,” said owner Katie Morris.
The credit for Quinn and her amazing recovery goes to Morris, an 18 year old, rural Greenwich resident and 4-H member.
Morris said she got Quinn from her horse trainer, Laura Erswell. “The person who traded her for the coon dog traveled up and down the road where we live asking everyone if they wanted her,” said Morris.
Everyone, she noted, told him to take her to Laura Erswell, “the local horse whisper,” according to Morris’ mother, Maria.
“She is Katie’s horse trainer,” Maria explained.
“She called me because she knew my horse had passed away from cancer and that I wanted another horse,” said Morris. “She told me this horse would need a lot of TLC. There was no debate about taking her, how do say no to something like that? She came home and we took care of her and made her well.”
According to Morris, Quinn is 99.9-percent there. “She was 800 pounds underweight when we got her.”
She was in pretty rough shape, and it was apparent her owner wasn’t taking care of her, she remarked.
Morris has written Quinn’s story as if she could talk.
“All of my feet hurt and I could barely walk,” Morris wrote. “Late at night after being traded for a coon, I took a ride in a trailer with my new owner. We stopped at house after house but no one wanted me.”
The once proud animal came to Erswell with a laundry list of health problems.
“She had abscesses on all of her feet. She had mange and rain rot (a skin fungus caused by overexposure to wet weather) and lice,” Morris said. “And every time you touched her she would flinch because she had been abused.”
The pair, Morris and Erswell, began a rehabilitation regime much needed by Quinn. “She was so weak she couldn’t hold the weight of a saddle,” said Morris. “When we put it on her, she nearly collapsed.”
Quinn was taken out to pasture for whole days at a time, she noted. “Normally, a horse is taken out to pasture for about a half a day.”
She was also given three large feedings of grain each day rather than the customary two smaller feedings. The twenty something year old Quinn didn’t have any trouble eating, said Morris. “I still had to earn her trust. At first, I would call her and she would ignore me, she would jerk her head and not let me come up to her.”
While there has been a big improvement in the relationship between horse and owner, Morris said it been give and take. “It has been a battle, but she has made so much progress.”
Fellow horsemen say after seeing Quinn and Morris together, she is a really good horse, very laid back and friendly and Katie has done a great job with her.
This was Morris’ and Quinn’s first year at the county fair. “I had about two weeks to prepare her,” she said.
This time period did not include the over 50 hours each week at her job. Morris said she spent about two hours each night with her horse in preparation for the fair contests.
While the pair did not place at this year’s competition, Morris said it was not a disappointment. “This was her first time, and she did a very good job and I am very proud of her.”
Morris, a member of the Hartland Haybusters, received the first ever Horse Achievement Award during this year’s Huron County Fair for her work with Quinn.
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