How does the process generally look if you purchase a horse a few hours away from you? If I were to go try a horse and decide it was something I'd like to proceed with, how do I navigate arranging and getting the horse to a local vet (local to the seller) to have the PPE performed? Is there a normal process for this? 

Trying to figure if I'll need to take off work the following week to go take the horse to a vet myself, or do you use a vet local to them that'll make a farm call and just hope they are unbiased? LOL 

What do you do?

You either ask the current owner of the horse to take it to vet and you make the appointment and pay.  Or if you arrange a time for the vet of your choice to go where the horse is and pay.  It depends on the current owner and how willing they are to help you.  

So it wouldn't necessarily be considered "industry norm" for me to haul the horse to the vet's PPE? This is very helpful. Thank you.

If i have an out of town buyer I have a couple different vets i use (not my normal vet) for PPEs. I haul the horse to the appointment, whether the buyer will be there or not. Horse will not be hauled by anyone else until he's paid for. I give the buyer the name and phone number of the clinic so they can give them a cc# and tell the what they specifically want done in the PPE.

Remember to put a dollar limit on the PPE or you'll end up with a $4000 bill.

This makes me feel so much better. I was worried a bit about liability of hauling it myself. 

Yes, absolutely. I have an idea what I want imaged. 

You can also have a local (to the horse) vet shoot x-rays and your vet on standby to review them.  I don't think sellers should consider this a bad thing--we bought one that we would have passed on had our regular vet not reassured us there was a fixable foot issue.  Local vet considered it a deal breaker (I don't know if it was because he was worried about liability or if he just wasn't as educated) but a year after purchasing the horse and our vet treating him the issue was 100% GONE.  Did not show on x-ray AT ALL.  Never caused the horse a moment's trouble either.

I bought a horse 15 hours away, I drove to try him and scheduled a pre purchase the following day. Was easy. 

I do this a lot with out of town buyers.  I have a Horse Purchase Agreement and I also provide a list of local vets a buyer can schedule their PPE with.  I also advise to ask for a referral from your local vet to (my area / Oklahoma City) vet.  You tell the vet what you want performed for your PPE.  Please note. . some vets have a list of things they do for a PPE, so be clear to communicate what YOU want performed.  Also, the vet list I refer to have NEVER seen the horse before.  Try to make things as unbias as possible for the buyer.  

I haul the horse to the vet the buyer chooses and make it to the appointment.  It's all pretty simple and standard.

My usual vet flunked a colt of mine on a PPE once.  Why wouldn't he?  Sure, I spend at the vets what I consider a huge amount of money every year.  They wouldn't even notice if my business went away.  No chance they are going to do something wrong on my behalf.  If they had morals like that, I wouldn't use them anyway.

(That colt was fine after trimming him for a few months but I agreed that the xrays that day didn't look like that little girl should risk buying him.  Both my vet and I were surprised at how things totally changed after a few months.  You have to have some good luck in this business.)

I've used the seller's vets in the past to buy horses and I would again.  I think when you talk to them you can, hopefully, get a feel for how unbiased they are.  They don't want you coming back on them after all.

I always tell them no xrays until I talk to them.  Some vets charge insane amounts for rads.  If the horse shows up with a serious issue that is a deal killer for me, I don't want to spend on rads anyway. 

If you do have xrays done, definitely get them looked at also by your vet who knows you.  More than one set of eyes is always best.

And whoever said that only I haul my horses while they are my horses - yep on that.  And vets in my area are far apart.  That's just part of the deal here - we haul and haul.

Thanks everyone. Seller agreed to take the horse to a vet I chose and he did a thorough PPE, called me to discuss findings, and discussed any areas he'd like to radiograph. All went super smoothly. And I got my new horse!

Awesome!!! 

Now we need pictures of your new fella!!!

It has been years since I've posted a pic on here. Let me see if I can figure it out. lol This is my new boy!

Nice looking fella, you two look to be a good match, and again CONGRATS!!!