Carrie Perry is the founder and the heart of Blue Heaven Therapeutic Riding Academy. In 1991, at the young age of 27, Carrie suffered a massive stroke, a Basilar Artery Occlusion and was not expected to live. When she awoke from the coma, she was unable to walk, talk, or see. At the time of her stroke, Carrie was a single working mother of two, Wesley three and Bobbie eighteen months.

After being hospitalized for two months and enduring therapy to learn how to walk again, Carrie was discharged and went home. She had very little strength in her upper body and could not even see to read. Eventually surgery helped to regain some vision in her left eye.

Carrie married her childhood sweetheart, Tim Perry, a couple of years after her stroke. In 1995, Tim bought Carrie a horse. Soon Carrie noticed that the strength in her upper body had increased, she began to have better balance and even her limited sight improved. She did not sleep as much and she found that she was far less depressed. Carrie didn't know it at the time, but she received therapy through riding and caring for her horse, Sassy.

Carrie knows first hand the struggles ahead for disabled people and wants to share the benefits of therapeutic riding with as many people as she can. She is living proof that horses can help people.