If you’ve been in the market for a horse recently, odds are you’ve taken your search online. From website classifieds to social media, Internet advertising makes horse shopping infinitely more convenient than in decades gone by; the thousands of prospects at our fingertips are often accompanied by flashy photo galleries and video clips.

But the informality of web shopping can also be misleading; it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of potentials and lose focus on important details.