Branded Horse Lease Agreement: Fill & Download for Free

Lots! Lots of costs and responsibilities involved in horse ownership!Daily:Friends to hang out with. Either get 2 horses or keep your horse in a pasture with other horses. They're social animals and they don't do well living in isolation.Freedom to move around. Although it's commonly accepted as typical horsekeeping, living in a stall 24/7 is comparable to a dog in a crate or a human in a linen closet. It's cruel, especially when you consider that horses evolved to move 10+ miles per day. A number of acres is ideal, but they should at least be able to step outdoors and trot a few steps and reach across the fence to touch their neighbors — minimum! They also need exercise each day, if they're kept in a small space. I used to keep my horse in a stall, and every. Single. Day. I got him out to exercise. On a longe line, walk in hand, run him loose in an arena, or go for a ride — they need to move in order to be healthy.Fresh, clean water. You can use troughs, buckets, or water on demand systems, but it's vital to keep it clean, ice broken and cleared several times a day in winter, cool in summer, and palatable. Dehydration is a major cause of colic, which can kill a horse.If/when there's no grass available, the bare minimum amount of hay a horse needs is 1.5% of its body weight, even if the horse is overweight. They need this much in order to keep the gut healthy and to prevent the body going into starvation mode. If the horse is underweight, feeding hay free choice is ideal. For the sake of using round numbers, we'll say your horse weighs 1000 pounds and a bale of hay weighs 50 pounds. 15 pounds of hay is the bare minimum, so a bale should last 2-3 days. Around here, you can get decent hay for $8-12 a bale. Your results will definitely vary depending on your location.Grain, if the horse needs extra calories. Many horses don't need grain, but it doesn't hurt to use a hay/forage balancer to provide the nutrients missing in the forage. If one horse in the barn or pasture gets grain, the others should get something extra at the same time. I had two very easy keepers who definitely didn't need grain, but the others got it. I gave mine a quart container of hay pellets when I grained the others, so they wouldn't feel left out and and suffer from ulcers due to hearing the others eat, and their stomachs getting ready for food they never got. Quality and prices definitely vary, but a 50 pound bag usually costs between $8-30.Other needs at various intervals:Hoof care, generally every 6-8 weeks. Most horses in most circumstances are better off barefoot than shod. You can't keep a horse barefoot in a stall full of soft shavings 6 days a week then ride several hours on rocks on Saturday — unless you put hoof boots on for the ride! If the horse lives out and moves freely over varied footing, then you ride on similar footing, or if you ride daily on typical surfaces, the hooves will toughen to the work they do and they'll grow out at pretty much the same rate as they wear down. They still need to be balanced and the edges rounded to prevent chipping and serious imbalances from developing. A hoof trim costs between $30-80 (? I do my own and charge $35 for others, so I don't really know the high end price). A set of shoes might run between $50-120, with a reset costing a little less. That's shoes removed, hooves trimmed, and the same, minimally-worn shoes reapplied.Deworming a few times a year. You can get a vet to do it, or easily shoot the medicine into the horse's mouth with a pre measured oral syringe. A syringe costs between $3–10, depending on the specific drug and the brand name.Routine vet visits:Hooboy, this one can run from $50 to hundreds. Vaccines, wellness checks, sheath cleaning (look it up, it's a guy thing), dental exam and treatment, and deworming are some of the services that you can have your vet do once a year or so.Emergency vet care:Now we're talking big money. Horses are amazingly fragile for their size, and they're very talented at finding ways to get hurt. Colic, injuries, and laminitis are probably the big 3 of horse health emergencies. There's literally no upper limit to the cost of an emergency, and it's good to have a plan in mind if the costs are going to be more than you can bear. Euthanasia and body disposal are very real possibilities. They're not needed often, but it's good to think about what your budget will bear before the worst happens.Now the fun stuff:Tack. The bare minimum, if you just want to hang out with your horse, take it for walks in hand, and provide health care, is a halter and lead rope, around $20. To ride, you need a bridle and saddle, minimum $30 and $300, for a decent quality used saddle. DO NOT BUY A CHEAP NEW SADDLE! It will sore your horse's back and fall apart in a couple of years. To haul out to trails, you need a truck and trailer. To show, you need a trainer/coach, lessons, a practice arena, fancy tack and clothing, truck and trailer, and entry fees. Gobs and gobs of money there.As an alternative to owning, you can research horse lease options. These divide the financial and care burden, advertising to the specific lease agreement. The downsides include the fact that the horse doesn't belong to you, so getting attached means breaking the attachment at some point.I hope you find a way to enjoy having horses in your life.

Surprised nobody has done this one, its one of my favorites.On February 27, 1927, two things happened around New Orleans.First, an insurance salesman and a kindergarten teacher had a daughter.Second, some guy named Chris opened a restaurant.Chris isnt the hero of this story, but we start with him. He opens a 60 seat upscale restaurant near the horse track. Not being the creative type, he named it after himself. No parking lot, but this was the late 20’s and cars still weren't a big thing. His restaurant was successful, and he sold it to investors, but stayed on as management and operator. Then, probably due to the depression, it started to fail. It went out of business, and Chris bought back the assets of the failed restaurant, very cheaply. He re-opened it. It did well. People invested and bought it from him, but kept him on as manager and operator. And then… it failed. Again.Chris, being a better businessman then restaurant manager, bought the failed assets, and… well, he reopened it. Guess what happened… thats right. It failed.Under Chris’s management, his restaurant opened, succeeded, was bought, and failed SIX TIMES in 38 years.And then it was sold again.Now, here enters the hero of the story. She was born into a poor family. Her older brother had fought in the war. She was smart though. Skipped grades in school and graduated at 15. Her family used her brother’s WWII GI benefits to send her to LSU where she graduated at 19 with honors in chemistry and physics. She married, had two sons, she and her husband opened up stables, and she became the first woman in Louisiana to be a licensed horse trainer.After her divorce, she tried supplementing her income by making drapes in her home, but it wasn't enough for herself and her teenage sons. She sees an ad in the paper for a restaurant for sale. She personally didnt have much experience in the restaurant business, but her older brother owned a small antique restaurant in a small town, and had some successful recipes. Her family, and her banker, and her lawyer all tried to talk her out of it, but she saw that the restaurant opened on the day she was born, and that was an omen for her.She raised the money she needed, bought it, refurbished it, and opened it herself. Best decision she made was to show Chris the door. She took an active hand in every aspect of the business. Serving, managing, learning how to butcher a cow. She hired other single mothers to work for her, giving them the opportunity that she herself had needed. And she ran that business well. 6 months after opening she had profited more then double her previous annual salary.Ten years of running the successful restaurant, she had acquired a large empty building nearby with the intent on making it a rental party space and have large events, with food bought over from the restaurant. She signed a second 10 year lease on the original restaurant.And then it burned down.Taking the money she had, she immediately equipped her second building with a full service kitchen, bought tables and chairs, and was ready to open a brand new restaurant. It was almost triple the seating capacity of the first one. There was just one problem. The brand that she had built up over ten years still belonged to Chris, the founder. Her agreement did not let her open up any other location with the same name, and opening a completely different restaurant didn't give her the same name recognition that she could use. With just a few short days before she opened it, she made the simple decision to just keep the name, but tack her name onto it. It met the requirements of her original agreement, she still had the original name, and now everyone who came to eat there got to learn just who it was that finally made the Chris Steak House so successful.Her name was Ruth Fertel.And 1 year later, a very loyal customer, who had some restaurant experience convinced her to franchise her restaurant to him. He opened his first one in Baton Rouge, and ten more over the years, plus created other restaurants and franchises.By the mid 90’s, Ruth’s Chris Steak House was a 200 million dollar operation with 66 locations all over the world. And Ruth Fertel still took an active role in their operation, up until she developed lung cancer in her 70’s. She sold a majority share to an investment corporation and held on to a portion of it until her death in 1999. When she died, there were 76 locations in the US and 10 others all over the world.

The company's own answers to your questions can be found in a declaration filed by the company's General Counsel, Chief Administrative Officer and Secretary with the bankruptcy court, a copy of which can be found here: Page on omnimgt.comIn relevant part, it states (on pages 7-11):Several factors have severely impacted the profitability of the Debtors’ product manufacturing and distribution business, ultimately prompting the current liquidity pressures that precipitated the Debtors’ decision to commence these chapter 11 cases and dispose of their assets pursuant to a Court-approved sale process.Over the past six years, Quirky shepherded hundreds of new products to the marketplace. While the Company’s early efforts focused on manufacturing relatively simple items, Quirky quickly shifted focus towards a greater number of more complex offerings in both hardware and software. By 2014, the number of products in manufactured and sold by Quirky had increased from 34 to over 150. The Company faced a number of operational challenges as the volume of more complicated products that Quirky brought to market increased and the product categories in which Quirky was involved became more diverse. The Company expanded to accommodate the development of these new products by opening offices in San Francisco, CA and Schenectady, NY, increasing the overhead expenses and working capital needs of the enterprise. At the same time, the Quirky platform generated a large number of products with an enthusiastic base of support from within the Quirky community. In short, Quirky was unable to attain manufacturing and distribution scale, and sustained significant losses on many of these products.Over time, Quirky’s struggle to effectively manage and scale the costs associated with its rapidly growing research and development, manufacturing and distribution functions manifested itself in increasing year-over-year operating losses and the incurrence of the secured and unsecured debt summarized above. Quirky’s difficulties coincided with considerable growth and development of the Wink business, which after initially serving as the app for connected products from the Quirky+GE partnership, quickly became a leader in the connected home products marketplace, expanding to partner with 15 leading brands and to support over 60 products. Accordingly, beginning in late 2014, the Company commenced efforts to reduce costs by transitioning Quirky’s business model from the manufacture of new products towards a model more focused on corporate partnerships and business-to-business consulting. In order to bolster the Powered by Quirky capabilities, on or about March 25, 2015 the Company acquired the assets of Undercurrent LLC, a boutique management consulting services provider, in exchange for a cash payment of $1.5 million at closing, the issuance of $5.3 million of convertible unsecured notes, the issuance of warrants, the collection and delivery by Quirky of certain accounts receivable, and $8 million in aggregate deferred payments due in December 2015 and March 2016.In 2015, the Company sought to obtain additional debt or equity capital to bridge the Company’s operations through this transitional phase in connection with an out-of-court restructuring. The efforts to raise capital for Quirky were spearheaded by Ben Kaufman, Quirky’s founder and Chief Executive Officer. The Debtors viewed the Wink business as an attractive target for a stand-alone investment or acquisition. Accordingly, on or about February 13, 2015, the Debtors retained Code Advisors LLC (“Code”) to serve as Wink’s investment banker. The Company supplemented these restructuring efforts in May 2015 by retaining FTI Consulting, Inc. and Cooley LLP to advise the Debtors regarding strategic alternatives.As Mr. Kaufman sought new capital for Quirky and Code (with assistance from Mr. Kaufman and the Company’s senior management) aggressively marketed the Wink business to prospective purchasers and investors, the Debtors continued to preserve liquidity and transition away from the manufacturing and design functions that had spurred Quirky’s significant operating losses. As part of that process, on June 2, 2015, Quirky effectuated a reduction in force of approximately 77 employees.Meanwhile, both Mr. Kaufman and Code expended significant effort trying to identify a financial partner to provide an equity infusion, debt investment or otherwise stabilize the financial situation of the Debtors. Mr. Kaufman and Code contacted numerous parties, many of whom conducted due diligence on potential transactions. Although several entities submitted non-binding expressions of interest, ultimately, no acceptable transaction for either Wink or Quirky materialized and the Debtors found themselves in a precarious financial condition that could no longer sustain operations in the ordinary course of business. Unfortunately, a transaction in the best interest of the Debtors, their creditors and shareholders was not available outside of chapter 11.Because of this reality, the Debtors implemented several initiatives. First, on July 2, 2015, Quirky retained Centerview Partners LLC (“Centerview”) to, in continuance of the efforts initially undertaken by Code and in consultation with Comerica, market Wink’s assets for sale through a chapter 11 proceeding pursuant to section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code. To support that process, Quirky established a special committee of its board of directors to direct Centerview and manage the marketing effort. Second, in order to stem the operating losses associated with the Quirky business and more efficiently allocate the Debtors’ remaining cash toward the Wink business and the marketing of Wink’s assets, the Debtors elected to temporarily discontinue Quirky’s operations. As a result, in late July and early August the Debtors conducted a second significant reduction in force, through which an additional 82 employees, including the vast majority of Quirky’s remaining employees, were terminated. Ed Kremer, the Debtors’ Chief Financial Officer, replaced Ben Kaufman as Chief Executive Officer and I was simultaneously elevated to Chief Administrative Officer.Third, the Debtors’ management worked to ensure the uninterrupted flow of inventory needed to preserve the value of the Wink business. Toward that end, the Debtors engaged with Flex, the primary provider of critical hardware for the Wink business, to support Wink’s operations as the Debtors marketed their assets and explored strategic alternatives through the extension of unsecured credit. The Debtors also consulted with Flex throughout their prepetition marketing process when a party that expressed serious interest in acquiring the Wink business identified the continuance of Wink’s business relationship with Flex as a critical element of a potential transaction. Flex agreed to support Wink’s sale process and to work in good faith to timely enter into a new commercial arrangement with parties that express interest in acquiring Wink’s assets, subject to Flex's reasonable business considerations.On July 22, 2015, Centerview began its outreach to potential bidders, and contacted 35 potential purchasers in total. Of these parties, 13 executed non-disclosure agreements and conducted due diligence on a potential Contemporaneously with these discussions, Quirky and Flex consummated a transaction pursuant to which (i) Quirky’s leases for its New York City and San Francisco headquarters were terminated, (ii) Flex entered agreements to lease the New York City and San Francisco offices from the respective landlords at those locations; and (iii) Flex agreed to provide the Debtors with a rent-free short term sublease for the New York City headquarters. Centerview’s marketing process yielded the submission of three (3) non-binding expressions of interest. The Company, through Centerview and its other advisors, worked with each of these parties to refine and enhance their acquisition proposal. Ultimately, none of these expressions of interest resulted in the submission of a proposal that was acceptable to the Company.In the aftermath of this process, the Company approached Flex regarding their interest in submitting a proposal to serve as the stalking horse bidder for the assets of the Wink business. The parties then engaged in substantive negotiations that culminated in the execution of a stalking horse asset purchase agreement for the sale of the assets associated with the Wink business and other assets to Flex, subject to higher and better offers, pursuant to a Court-approved process pursuant to section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code.As of the date hereof, the Debtors possess three categories of assets (i) assets associated with the continuation of the Wink business as a going concern (which are proposed to be acquired by Flex); (ii) the Quirky online community and the agreements between Quirky and third parties that constitute the Powered By Quirky Initiative; and (iii) miscellaneous inventory, machinery, furniture, fixtures, equipment, and intellectual property associated with Quirky’s design and manufacturing business model. The Debtors have commenced these cases to sell the Wink business as a going concern and to maximize the value of Quirky’s assets through a sale process led by Hilco IP Services, LLC d/b/a Hilco Streambank, an expert in managing the sale of intellectual property assets. It is expected that other, non-intellectual property assets of Quirky will be sold in sales arranged or managed by Ed Kremer, Quirky’s Chief Executive Officer.