Star Hopper was the unicorn pony from the Sparkle Pony release. She is one of the easiest Mail Order Ponies to spot at a glance because of her distinctly white hair (the store version had yellow). She also had a small UFO symbol on her cheek, which marks out all the mail order ponies from their store sold versions.

There are some distinctive variations on Star Hopper as well, which I can most clearly illustrate with the below image. The first and second are both Mail Order Star Hoppers, while the third is the store release, and was picked up second hand here in the UK. The other two both came from North America, and both have the symbol on the cheek, but they are distinctly different in body colour and symbol print. The most likely explanation for this is the continued release of Mail Order Sparkle ponies over two or three years. It makes sense that Hasbro would have used the same plastic for store and Mail Order releases if they were available at the same time, to save money. This means that the Mail Order pony pictured on the left was probably available around 1989, when the store set were released. The Mail Order pony on the right (in the centre of the image) is more likely from 1988, before the store release was finalised.