Client Letter

General Information 

Grand Strand Equine is an equine (horse, mule, and donkey) exclusive veterinary practice with Dr. Elizabeth Gorrell as the practicing veterinarian. Our practice area includes Horry County and some of the surrounding areas. Our regular business hours are Monday through Friday from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. We are closed on the weekends and most major holidays. The office is located in the Venture Office Park at 1320 Highway 501 Business Unit H in Conway, SC. The best way to reach us is through the office at 843-603-1070. You can call or text this number. If we do not answer when you call, please leave a message and we will call you back. This is most likely not the number you have saved in your phone so please update it. If you have an emergency after hours, please call 843-603-1075 and leave a message.

Our Promises to You

We are committed to cultivating beneficial relationships with our clients and patients. A strong partnership – rooted in mutual trust and respect – is essential to support the best possible care for the equines we all love. We promise to treat you and your horse with care and compassion, schedule appointments promptly, be on time to appointments or communicate any delay, provide treatment options to best suit you and your horse, have the equipment and supplies to care for your equine to the highest level, and provide medical records of the visit. We also promise to make sure you are educated on every facet of your horse’s care and will take the time and provide additional resources to make you an expert in caring for your horse. We are also doing our best to keep care affordable and will not be increasing prices on our wellness exams, vaccinations, and coggins in 2026.

Current Client/Patient 

The foundation of a veterinary-client-patient relationship (VCPR) is based on open communication, trust, and a shared commitment to the horse’s health and well-being. An established patient with a legal VCPR is one that has a wellness exam and core vaccinations at least once a year. Once we have this relationship established, we can help troubleshoot problems over text or phone potentially saving an in-person visit, refill medications and in some cases prescribe new ones, and be people you can call with any questions or concerns.

Annual Wellness Exams 

Wellness exams are healthy horse exams where we establish the healthy baseline for each horse and identify any small problems that could impact their health. A wellness exam includes checking their eyes, mucus membranes (gums), lymph nodes, skin, heart, lungs, GI tract, and so much more. These exams are also a great time to discuss any concerns you may have about your horse. We encourage owners to be present during this exam, but if that is not possible, to let us know any concerns they may have prior to the appointment. During this exam we can also discuss if there are any other baseline tests we would recommend like a fecal egg count, metabolic testing, or baseline blood work that would be valuable for your horse.

Performance Horse Wellness Exams

Performance horses of all levels need a little extra preventative screening to make their annual wellness exams comprehensive. This year we want to make it easier to get them what they need. A performance horse wellness exam will include everything from a regular wellness exam with an added emphasis on identifying early lameness and having a solid foundation. A Sleip analysis, which is an objective gait analysis, uses AI to detect any asymmetry in the horse’s gait. A baseline Sleip analysis allows us to monitor horses throughout the season to detect small changes before they become a bigger problem and affect performance. The Performance Horse Wellness also includes hoof radiographs to make sure your horse is on a solid foundation and provide baseline images of the inside of the hoof. We do recommend that the hoof radiographs be taken in conjunction with your farrier, if possible.

Vaccines 

The core vaccinations are the diseases that all horses should be vaccinated for, no matter what. These guidelines are established by the American Association of Equine Practitioners and we fully support these recommendations. The core vaccines are Eastern Equine Encephalitis, Western Equine Encephalitis, West Nile Virus, tetanus, and rabies. Grand Strand Equine and the AAEP recommends vaccination for EEE, WEE, WNV, and tetanus twice a year because we are in the South and have continuous mosquito activity year round. If owners choose to vaccinate for the mosquito diseases only once a year, we recommend vaccinating in the early Spring to have the best coverage during the time when the mosquitos are most prevalent.

There are also risk based vaccines that may be needed based on each individual horse’s situation. Horses that travel or are near horses that do, are at boarding barns, or pregnant need to be vaccinated against Equine Influenza and Equine Herpesvirus 1 and 4, and potentially Strangles. We would be happy to discuss your individual horse and determine if any risk based vaccines are recommended for them.

If you have current vaccines from another veterinarian we will be happy to accept their records as proof of our vaccine requirements. Owner administered vaccines will not be considered, however, because their efficacy can not be guaranteed and they are not backed by the manufacturer. Legally owners can not vaccinate their own horse for rabies in the Carolinas. Benefits of veterinarian administered vaccines are a guarantee that the vaccines have been handled correctly and the vaccines are tracked. The vaccine manufacturer will pay for diagnostics if we think a horse has a disease they have been vaccinated for, and they will pay for treatment if your horse contracts a disease that it has been vaccinated for.

Emergency Services 

Emergency services are only guaranteed to our current patients. Dr. Elizabeth will personally be on call as much as she possibly can, while still taking care of herself and her other responsibilities. We understand how stressful an emergency can be and that you would prefer your regular veterinarian, and we will do our best to be there. If she is not available then we will coordinate another veterinarian to visit your farm or refer you to a haul in clinic. While we do our best to provide on the farm emergency care, it is important that you are prepared to haul if necessary. We recommend that all horses are able to load and travel in a variety of trailers. All horse owners should have access to a truck and trailer. We have a list of people who are willing to help others who do not have trailers if needed. If you have your own trailer, please make sure that it is ready to go to prevent scrambling when you need to use it.

Please call as soon as you think you have an emergency. Prompt treatment improves outcomes! Emergencies are treated as such on both a Saturday or a Tuesday and there is no benefit in waiting until business hours to call with an emergency.

Services

We know that you need many services to care for your horse and want to highlight a few that we offer. Having services provided by the same clinic makes continuity of care better and provides you and your horse with a better service.

Integrative services – We are continuing to expand our acupuncture and chiropractic (medical manipulation) services. The addition of our veterinary grade PEMF unit has enhanced these services.

Reproductive services – We will have a limited number of spots to breed mares for the 2026 year with fresh cooled semen. If you are interested in this service please call to discuss further.  

Payment

Payment is due at the time of service. Please be prepared for the office staff to confirm payment arrangements for every appointment at the time of scheduling. If you are not going to be at the appointment, please make sure payment is arranged beforehand. We accept all major credit cards, cash, checks, and Care Credit. We are not able to process Care Credit for balances below $200. For the convenience of our clients, we are able to keep a debit or credit card on file to run at the time of service. Please understand that payment at time of service will help us keep prices from rising to account for the hours spent trying to collect payment.

If there is an extenuating circumstance where you do not pay at time of service there will be a 10% late fee applied as soon as the invoice is due. 

Biosecurity Refresh

This year has been very educational on the importance of biosecurity with the EHV-1 outbreak. While we have not had any cases in our area, it is important to take this time and review biosecurity. The biggest thing is isolating any new horse coming on property. It does not matter if they came from another local farm, got a pre-purchase exam, or moved from the West coast. The goal is to quarantine them for 2-3 weeks, but if that is not possible, quarantine a minimum of 10 days. During this quarantine time, monitor them for any signs of illness (lethargy, cough, nasal discharge, etc) and ideally take their temperature once a day. If your horse shows signs of illness, keep them isolated. Be sure to keep your horse’s supplies clean and disinfected and wash your hands before coming in contact with any other horses.

Online Pharmacy

We recommend that clients utilize our online pharmacy to make sure they consistently have the medications they need at the most economical price. Our online pharmacy can be found at: https://grandstrandequine.myv…online.pharmacy/shop. The medications found in our online pharmacy are guaranteed to be the same quality as the medications we sell in our office, and not diverted products. We encourage clients with horses on daily medications to set up auto-ship with this service. This will ensure that your horse stays current on its medications, and that you get the most affordable option. Medications in our office are priced higher than the same products available from our online pharmacy due to the convenience and higher cost to have them in the office/truck. If your horse is on a compounded medication we can set you up with a compounding pharmacy as well. Prescriptions from both the online pharmacy and compounding pharmacies will require payment from the owner and will ship to the address you provide. We do not approve outside prescription requests from third-parties like Chewy, AlliVet, ect. We will not approve these as we can not guarantee the quality of that medication. If you would like to use a different pharmacy, we can provide a physical written prescription for pick up. Outside prescriptions will be subject to a $35 record review and administrative fee.

Thank you for your patience and understanding in executing our policies. We look forward to continuing to build a lasting relationship with you and your horse(s). Please let us know if you have any comments or suggestions on how we can better serve the Grand Strand by giving us a call at (843) 603-1070, or email us at grandstrandequine@gmail.com

Sincerely,

Dr. Elizabeth, Kristin, and Stephanie
Grand Strand Equine 

We are looking forward to the opportunity to serve you and your horse(s) in the year ahead! Follow us on Facebook and Instagram to keep up to date with disease outbreaks, educational information, videos, and some behind the scenes action, as well as some fun giveaways.
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