NEW PARIS, Ky. – Forty-two years ago, Ralph Quillin, now 73, founded a leather business out of a corner of his house. As Quillin puts it, he stumbled into the leather trade.

“This all started when I was in college and decided to make myself a belt,” Quillin said. “I loved making that belt and I remember my mom asking me how I could make a living selling belts.”

Soon after, he decided to leave college and landed a job making custom leather sandals.

“I got married in 1973 and bought a trailer and moved to my grandmother’s farm here in Paris, Ky.,” he said. “My wife and I kept buying bigger and bigger farms, one was several hundred acres with 400 cows, but all the while I wanted to expand my love for leather craft.”

At the time, Quillin, a Lexington native, was a paramedic with the Lexington Fire Department whose interest in custom leather goods began as a side hobby.

“I joined the fire department to get a regular paycheck, pick up some insurance and maybe a pension down the road,” Quillin said.

Finally, Quillin made the bold move and opened Quillin Leather & Tack in 1982 in a two-story wood-framed house that was converted into the workshop-office-showroom hybrid that it is today.

“One thing just led to another,” he said. “At first things were tough. But it’s always been tough because the leather trade is just so labor-intensive.”

Quillin loved working with leather, but it took some hard work to figure out what would sell. In the early years, if a customer came in and asked if they carried a particular item, Ralph and his sister might sneak a glance, then tell the customer, “the last one of that particular item just sold.” They would then run to a catalog, figure out what the person had been asking for, and ensure they started carrying that in their store.

Everything Quillin knows about customized leather goods was self-taught. Eventually he thought he could give customized horse halters a try, a move that sent his business soaring.

One popular sideline is halter belts for men and women, with the owner’s name engraved on the brass plate. These seem to be a fashion stable in the Bluegrass State, and not just among the horsey set.

Key tags, belts, dog collars and horse halters are just a few of the other custom products offered by Quillin Leather & Tack.

Their work is sought after, not just at horse farms throughout Kentucky, but across the globe. Quillin-produced halters alone have been shipped to Dubai, Australia and Japan.

“We’ve even shipped leather dog collars to the North Pole,” Quillin added.

Horse halters are the company’s featured item, as they’ve made halters for premier stallions in the horse industry, including Flightline, who won the 2022 Breeder’s Cup.

Other former customers include Secretariat, the winner of the 1973 Triple Crown, and Storm Cat, a successful racehorse and sire whose stud fee once reached $500,000.

Horses at nearby Claiborne Farms don the leather craft produced by Quillin and his staff.

According to Quillin, it takes 156 steps to make a halter. There are also 150 variations of sizes, colors and styles that could go into a halter.

“If things go smoothly, two halter makers can produce 75 to 85 halters a day,” Quillin said. “Our business is 60 percent online, 25 percent mail order and 15 percent walk-in.”

The halter-making process starts with the shipment of 25-square-foot leather sheets from a distributor. Quillin and his staff has a machine that will cut that leather and alter it for the proper size for a halter. The edges of the straps are then smoothed, folded and stitched together.

Once the halter is made, it’s dipped in dye to give it color. The leather originally comes in a manila color. Using dye allows the makers to color it to the specification of the customer.

“Machines do the sewing but everything else is done by hand,” Quillin said. “And believe me, I’m learning something new every day.”

The dye and customization of the halters also help with the longevity of the product. Quillin said they’ve repaired some halters that were upward of 20 years old.

“We got to grow the business because we’re not going to get repeat customers because the stuff lasts so long,” Quillin said. “The good news is that if you have a baby foal in Kentucky, that foal will need a foal’s halter, a newborn halter, eventually a small halter, then a larger halter, perhaps a sale halter and a race track halter.”

There are 14 employees hard at work at Quillin’s each day, working with century-old machines (1910), producing roughly 18,000 halters each year. It’s a loud business, Quillin said, with machines putting out 90 decibels of noise. There are five such machines operating continuously, with five in backup.

“Quillin’s impact on not only Paris, but the thoroughbred industry, is unmatched,” said Lauren Biddle, executive director of the Paris Chamber of Commerce. “He has become a worldwide brand.”

Bucker Woodford, a long-time banker who has known Quillin for decades, said, “He’s just a real energetic guy. And he’s always trying to do business the right way.”

Quillin has found his niche after his time as a cattle rancher, firefighter and paramedic.

“I enjoy what I do. I enjoy taking a product and keep making it better and better, with improvements each time,” Quillin said. “As we begin our 43rd year on Main Street in Paris, we still hold customer service as our number one product.”