Racegoers might have to be forgiven if, on August 23, they thought they were experiencing déjà vu. Just as in 2018, the winner of the 2025 Ballerina Stakes (G1) was a four-year-old bay filly with a Bob Marley-related name; she’d gone off as the favorite and ran off the pace before closing to win by daylight. In this case, the winners of this year’s Ballerina and the 2018 edition have something further in common: They’re daughter and dam, racing for Ron Perry and Barbara Ranck-Perry’s Cicero Farms.
This year’s Ballerina victress was four-year-old Hope Road, by Quality Road out of fellow Ballerina heroine Marley’s Freedom (by Blame ). “On personality, they’re a lot the same,” Ron Perry shared. “When we visit—which is more often than most, I suppose—they both want their cuddles, they want their hugs, they want their carrots. And the one difference is that ‘Marley’ will pay attention to us for about 10 or 15 minutes when she was in her stall when she was racing. ‘Hope’ will stay with us as long as we want to. She’s a little more accommodating that way.”
He added, “Physically, Hope is built a lot like Quality Road and Marley was built a lot like Blame and all of Marley’s babies so far seem to be built like the stallion. She throws the stallion into them shape-wise.” In contrast to her dam, Hope Road “likes to be freewheeling on the front,” Perry said, “and now she’s able to think about it and say, ‘No, no, no, I can beat you,’ and relax. They’ve taught her—[trainer] Bob [Baffert’s] taught her—to relax a bit off the lead, and Marley preferred to be off the lead and just come run you down.”
Cicero Farms’ 20 broodmares are boarded at Tom VanMeter’s Pretty Run Farm in Winchester, Kentucky. Marley has an Uncle Mo colt who RNA’ed for $800,000 at the recent Keeneland September Yearling sale. The mare has a Violence weanling colt Perry described as “stunning”; she’s in foal to Not This Time for 2026.
Based in Rancho Santa Fe, California, the Perrys have about 63 horses in total, which includes runners and retirees. Many of their horses are recognizable by names related to the great reggae musician Bob Marley. For example, Hope Road references the street in Jamaica where Marley lived, while the connection with Marley’s Freedom is self-evident. The Perrys associated a Marley tune with daughter and dam; Hope’s is “One Love,” all about bringing people together, while Marley’s was “Redemption Road.”
Perry mused, “I still have the dream that one day when we win a race, on the gallop back to the winner’s circle, they play our winner’s song that we ask them to play if we want. And so, for that twenty-second jog back, could you imagine you’re playing and then the fans can all join us in singing a song together. Yes, of course, it’s glorifying our horse. But the flip side is, everybody just saying, ‘Take a breath. Enjoy the minute!’ That’s kind of what the winner’s circle is supposed to be. We all sing together for a bit and go, ‘Wow, I’d like to put a song on my horse, too, when he runs or she runs next week.’ Boom, there you go! Right? And we bring people in because of their love of music.”
Both Marley and Hope have competed in the best sprint stakes for fillies and mares, and both are (or were) Breeders’ Cup-bound. Marley finished an excellent fourth, beaten by just a head, a neck, and a head, in the 2018 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1); meanwhile, Cicero homebred Hope is headed to this year’s edition, to be held Nov. 1 at Del Mar. In advance of the race, Perry said, “Hope is training great. Obviously, there’s one horse that’s beaten us three times in a row (Kopion), but this is a different racetrack than those other tracks. Okay! And Hope is a different horse than she was six months ago. So that’ll be fun. There’ll be a couple horses we haven’t got to run against yet that are pretty good, but they haven’t run against Hope either.
A few days before the Filly & Mare Sprint, the Perrys will go all out for their annual Halloween bash, with friends and family coming into town from all over. The festivities will include a headless horseman and dragon decorations, among other ghoulish fun. The icing on the Halloween cake would be a treat (rather than a trick!): Hope winning the Filly & Mare Sprint.
