Off The Track - Picaninny

This article is from the August 2019 Horse Deals magazine.

All Thoroughbreds are bred to be athletes, but some are more athletic than others. As we have seen in this feature over the years, little athletic mares are in great demand on the polo and polocrosse field. After a less than glorious flirtation with racing, Picaninny found her home and her speciality with Bloss Thomas and her family in Western Australia.

Picaninny, who raced as Wild Love, foaled in 2007. She was bred at one of, if not the biggest and most successful Thoroughbred studs in WA, Mungrup Stud at Narrikup near Albany in southern WA. She is by the Irish bred Pearl of Love that had two wins from seven starts and goes back to Northern Dancer on his sire line and interestingly to the 1977 US Triple Crown winner, Seattle Slew on his dam sire. Picaninny’s dam, Wild Storm has Kenmare on her sire line and the great Precipitation on her dam line, so there is plenty of interesting breeding to justify a sporting prowess. It was not, however, to be shown on the racetrack.

“Apparently she had a couple of trials and was disappointing,” says Bloss Thomas. “Also she was a petite filly that had double-barreled another horse during training, so she was sacked. Friends who train racehorses told me they knew of a filly they thought suitable for polocrosse that was soon to be available. I went to see her and she was three years old and a pretty little thing and I had time for a young horse. Three is a good age to get them off the track, because they haven’t been raced much, but have had all the benefit of the handling and travelling, etc and it is a good trainable age.

“I took her home and put her in the paddock for a month or so to get the racehorse out of her. I brought her back in and got my son BJ (Billy Joe) to hop on her in the round yard and give her a ride out. She seems pretty good Mum, go for it. I started riding her around the farm doing cattle work. She did not have much idea to start with, but she had plenty of attitude and I liked her so I persevered. I just kept on riding her and educating her; shutting gates, moving cattle from here to there. That got her moving off my leg and responding to my aids and generally quietend her down. I think too that she saw the point of the training in that situation, whereas she might not have been so understanding if we had tried to do all that in an arena. Before I knew what her racing name was, I called her Picaninny, because she was young, pretty, small and dark and that is the name she plays under.

“I started playing polocrosse on her for the South Midlands Club, just north of Perth in the Central Zone and played her for two years before anyone else got on her. BJ’s wife, Marijke took her and rode her in A Grade competition and the first weekend she came home with a Champion Pony award. She just goes in hard and gets the ball and she is very quick and agile on the polocrosse field and she will just push anything out of the way. BJ got on the team two years ago to play South Africa and asked if he could take her. He had to take three horses, but he rode Picaninny in the test match.

“My husband and I play polocrosse as do my two sons and my daughters-in-law and Picaninny is now ridden by my daughter-in-law Suzette. I hop on her every now and then to do some cattle work, just to remind her of her manners.”

“I am glad they sacked her from the racetrack,” says Suzette Thomas, “because she is very good on the polocrosse field. I have not had a chance to play her at Nationals yet, but I have played her within our club and zone. I have just come back from winning the Polocrosse World Cup at Warwick in April. I took her and seven others across to Warwick and she was one of the best. I played her in tournaments in Victoria and NSW and then headed up to Queensland. I had to provide loan horses to the other teams and Picaninny ended up on the team from Zimbabwe and was Champion Pony for two of the matches.

“She took all the traveling and playing in her stride. She is a very athletic little thing and my mother-in-law is the one who put all the work, time and effort into training her. Picaninny gets in there and always gives 110%. She has her ways that you have to be mindful of, like not doing up the girth too quickly, but on the field she is very fast and gets around and manoeuvres beautifully. She is out now on a break after the big trip to Warwick in April. The season over here starts now (July) and goes until the end of November. Picaninny won’t start now, she will come in when there are bigger, more important tournaments to play. She’s a big-time gal now and certainly one of my best horses.”

Article: Anna Sharpley.
Photos: Shannon Gilson.

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