A handshake sells a horse. A contract protects the buyer. In most of Europe a verbal sale is perfectly binding, which sounds reassuring until you have to prove what was actually agreed, so get everything in writing, and be wary of any professional seller who would rather not.
A good sales contract identifies the horse precisely, by name, microchip and passport number, so there is no doubt about which animal you bought. It states the price and payment terms. Most importantly, it records the seller’s written statements about the horse: its health history, any vices, whether it has been on medication. These written statements are the real heart of your protection, because a promise you can point to on paper is worth far more than one you remember from a conversation at the yard. The contract should also make the sale conditional on a satisfactory vetting, protect any deposit you pay, and, for a cross-border sale, state clearly which country’s law governs it. That last point sounds dry until a dispute lands you in a foreign court, so it is worth settling while everyone is still friendly.
You must also receive the horse’s papers at handover, and for an international buyer this matters twice over, because you cannot ship a horse without them. The equine passport is the essential one, and it is worth knowing that the passport identifies the horse but does not prove who owns it. Ownership comes from the contract and the invoice. Get the passport, the breeding papers, the vetting report and X-rays, and a correct invoice, and check the invoice carefully, because its details affect the tax and paperwork on the export later.
Finally, learn the warning signs, because most bad purchases are not clever frauds but ordinary problems a careful buyer would have caught. Be suspicious of pressure and false urgency, of a seller who dodges direct questions, of a horse that is already warmed up and waiting when you arrive, of unclear ownership, and of any request to pay outside normal banking channels. The single most reliable red flag of all is resistance to an independent vet check. If you see it, you have learned everything you need to know about that seller. There are more horses. There are never refunds.