1990: Playsets: The Picnic Pony

SWEET CLOVER

Pink earth pony with dark pink/pale pink mane and tail, yellow and orange flowers symbol. (UK release version).

If Rosette had a mild identity crisis, Sweet Clover had a considerably major one. For several years she was known in parts of the collecting community under various names - Picknick-Pony (the german set name), Kleeblätt (the German actual name), Cloverleaf (a translation of the German name), Clover (erm...not sure about that one) and others.

However, her real identity in English is "Sweet Clover, The Picnic Day Pony", and this name appears not only on her box, but also on Rosette's box and in one edition of the My Little Pony comic, where she appears for the one and only time as part of a 'win a playset' competition.

Sweet Clover is also confusing on other levels, too. There are two distinct versions of her, and, although people have been trying to ignore this for years, it seems that the pinker version (shown above and in the MIB picture) belongs to the United Kingdom release, whilst the other version (below) belongs to parts of continental Europe (certainly Germany, which might suggest she needs the name Kleeblätt' instead!)

SWEET CLOVER: Variation, continental Europe.
Peach earth pony with pink/dark pink mane and tail, bouquet of orange and yellow flowers.

Beyond a doubt, on the second hand market the paler peachish version of this pony is easier to find, which has sparked a dramatic drop in the prices of both versions. Despite this, however, the pink Sweet Clover is one of the harder UK release ponies to find on the  second hand market, probably because of her lack of publicity. To make things more confusing, though, the peach version was the one used on inserts, the back of boxes and even the comic competition page. It's easy to see how people have become muddled!

Her playset accessories were more original than those belonging to her friend Rosette, but still encorporated some re-releasing - her plates are based on the same design as those which came with Tutti Frutti some years earlier.