When Mark Mead walks Gold Panda into schooling ring at a horse show, he immediately knows all eyes are on him. After all, it’s pretty hard to miss a palomino Thoroughbred in a hunter schooling area these days.

“If I’m at a place where people have never seen him before, when I’m riding around people are looking at me like ‘What’s he doing with a cow horse?’ ” said Mead. “But then they see me pick up canter, and he’s got an 18-foot beautiful lopey stride, and I know their view changes. It’s really cool.”

Gold Panda turned plenty of heads during the Gulf Coast Winter Classic series in Gulfport, Miss., in a very good way. He finished second in today’s NAL/WIHS Adult Amateur, 18-35, hunter classic with Audrey Carlson, who hopped aboard for the circuit when her own horse suffered an injury right before the circuit.

Over the years Gold Panda (Canadian Kid—Li’L Loose, Loose), now 13, has gained quite a following, and owner Clare Grady, who’s had him since 2010, has gotten used to the questions about his heritage. It’s easy to clear up the misconceptions, namely that because of his color he must be part Quarter Horse, because Grady bought the 16.1-hand horse from breeder Barbara Dunning.

Dunning hadn’t originally set out to breed a palomino Thoroughbred. She’d planned a completely different breeding, but her maiden mare wouldn’t get in foal, despite numerous shipments of semen. When the stallion died, the owner offered to honor the contract with another stallion.

“She called in the spring and said ‘Well I did work out another stallion, but I don’t think you’ll like it. It’s a palomino,’ ” recalled Dunning.  “I told her I loved it already.”

Dunning decided to breed to a friend’s hunter, L’Il Loose, who looked fancy in the show ring, but was no longer sound. L’Il Loose was a registered red roan, but had grayed out completely by the time Dunning got her.

“I didn’t know much about color genetics then, but I liked the idea of a palomino foal,” she said. “I said ‘What the heck. I have a fifty-fifty chance of a palomino or a chestnut roan.’ ”

Gold Panda, named after a Chinese coin, was born a beige milky color, but after his baby coat shed out took on his current color. Dunning was an experienced breeder, but that colt tested her will.

	A typical Gold Panda moment back at the barn. Photo courtesy of Clare Grady.

“He was the most juvenile delinquent,” said Dunning who nicknamed him Pekoe to honor her British husband’s love of tea. “He took endless fun torturing me in silly things. One day in the pasture he took a 30-gallon trashcan and flipped it onto his head and was running around with it on his head. He was hilarious. He loved to play tricks on you and watch your reaction.”

He never lost that penchant for playfulness. Grady’s had to move her tack trunk to where he can’t reach it, because he learned how to grab ahold of the cover and tug until he knocked it over, scattering brushes, hairnets and wraps all over the barn aisle.

Pekoe won the International Hunter Futurity West Coast Regional (Calif.) championship as a 3-year-old, and won the jackpot at the same competition the next year. Dunning showed him in the adult amateur division, while Susan Crenshaw took over the ride in the open ring, sweeping the conformation division at the Oregon High Desert Classic I as a first year horse. Grady and Pekoe paired up that year, and when Grady headed to college in Colorado she took “her yellow horse,” as she calls him, with her. Mead showed him as a second year horse while Grady was in the amateur-owner ring, earning ribbons on the derby field as well.

Grady’s primarily a jumper fan, but there was something about Pekoe that drew her to him, and it wasn’t his color.

“He could have been a chestnut; he could have been a bay, I’d still have loved him,” said Grady. “It was just the circumstance. He’s such a character. He’s a comic and he’s so much fun.” 

Pekoe has a relative at Mead’s Sleepy Hollow Farms in Longmont, Colo. Canadian’s Kid, a full Thoroughbred also by Canadian Kid, also has a stall in the barn and occasionally competes in the hunter ring alongside Pekoe with owner Deborah Orent. And both competed in the same division during Gulfport. That horse, a chestnut, was bred for the hunter ring as well.

Both Thoroughbreds by Canadian Kid, Canadian’s Kid, left, with Deborah Orent, and Gold Panda, with Audrey Carlson,  both showed in the adult amateur, 18-35, division under trainer Mark Mead. Photo by Mollie Bailey.

Pekoe tore a collateral ligament playing in the pasture last year, and Grady and Mead took their time bringing him back into work. And when he came back to his first horse show he had a warm welcome from his many fans who missed watching him perform.

“I love a good Thoroughbred—everyone does!” said Mead. “It’s hard to find these nice hunter types, ones that weren’t fried on the track or bred so hot. We focus on running lines for Thoroughbreds here, not jumping lines. If someone would focus on the jumping lines I think they’d be a billionaire. Everyone loves them.” 

Want more unusual colored show hunters? We’ve got the story on a top Appaloosa hunter. Want more Gulfport? Catch up with more news and photos.