The questions you ask a seller decide whether you buy the horse in front of you or the horse in the advert, and those are not always the same animal. Ask them in a friendly, unhurried way, write the answers down, and treat anything vague or contradictory as a reason to dig further rather than a reason to feel awkward. A good seller expects these questions and answers them with records, not just reassurance.
Identity, history, and reason for sale
Start with the basics and verify them. How old is the horse exactly, what is its breeding and recorded history, how long has the seller owned it, and where did it come from before that? What work is it doing right now, how many days a week, at what level, and when was it last competed, hunted, or hacked out, depending on the job you want it for? A horse described as fit and in work who has actually been turned away for months is a different purchase, with a slow fitness build ahead of you.
Ask the genuine reason for sale and listen to whether it fits the story. Outgrown, rider giving up, change of circumstances, and too much horse for the current rider are all common and plausible; what matters is consistency between the reason, the horse's history, and what you see when you ride it. Ask who usually rides the horse, whether a less experienced rider than the seller has handled it, and what it is like on its worst day, not its best. Sellers answer that last question surprisingly honestly, and the worst-day version is the horse you are actually committing to on wet, windy evenings.
Health, management, and vices
Ask for the health history directly: any lameness and how it was resolved, episodes of colic and whether surgery was involved, laminitis, breathing problems, skin trouble such as sweet itch, eye problems, and any ongoing management or treatment. Ask when the teeth were last done and by whom, whether vaccination and worming records are up to date and available to see, and how the horse is shod, including any remedial shoeing and how often the farrier visits. Ask what the horse eats, how it is kept, whether it lives in or out, and how it behaves with other horses in the field, because a horse who cannot be turned out with others changes your livery options.
Ask about vices and stable behaviour by name, because sellers may not volunteer them: crib-biting, wind-sucking, weaving, box-walking, kicking stable walls, biting, or pulling back when tied. Ask about behaviour for the practical jobs: loading and travelling, being clipped, being caught, standing for the vet and farrier, riding in traffic, hacking alone and in company, and opening gates. Each of these, if difficult, is a daily tax on ownership, and several also affect insurance and resale.
Trial, vetting, and paperwork
Ask whether you can try the horse more than once, see it caught from the field and tacked up from scratch, and watch it handled by someone other than its usual rider. Ask whether the seller welcomes a pre-purchase vetting by your own vet, and be wary of pressure to skip it or to complete within days. Agree what is included in the price: tack and whether it actually fits, rugs, and any equipment, and get the agreed list written into the receipt.
Finally, check the documents against the horse. The passport should be present, should match the horse's description and silhouette, and should be scanned against the microchip; read the food-chain declaration, because it governs which medicines a vet may use. Ask for the vaccination record and any veterinary history the seller is willing to share, and arrange the transfer of ownership paperwork at the point of sale rather than chasing it afterwards.
Those answers, recorded while they are fresh, become the starting knowledge you manage the horse from. KinsLe Transferrable Profiles helps at exactly that handover, because the seller can transfer the horse's profile to you with its history, health records, feeding, shoeing, and daily routines intact, so nothing you learned while asking is lost once the horse is yours.