diff --git a/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/action/percolate/PercolateRequest.java b/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/action/percolate/PercolateRequest.java
index 6d09fee0c91..5d79a6f5b16 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/action/percolate/PercolateRequest.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/action/percolate/PercolateRequest.java
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ import org.elasticsearch.ElasticSearchGenerationException;
 import org.elasticsearch.action.ActionRequestValidationException;
 import org.elasticsearch.action.get.GetRequest;
 import org.elasticsearch.action.support.broadcast.BroadcastOperationRequest;
+import org.elasticsearch.action.support.broadcast.BroadcastOperationThreading;
 import org.elasticsearch.client.Requests;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.bytes.BytesArray;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.bytes.BytesReference;
@@ -60,15 +61,13 @@ public class PercolateRequest extends BroadcastOperationRequest<PercolateRequest
     long startTime;
 
     public PercolateRequest() {
-    }
-
-    public PercolateRequest(String[] indices, String documentType) {
-        super(indices);
-        this.documentType = documentType;
+        // we want to do the percolate in parallel on all the local shards
+        operationThreading(BroadcastOperationThreading.THREAD_PER_SHARD);
     }
 
     public PercolateRequest(PercolateRequest request, BytesReference docSource) {
         super(request.indices());
+        operationThreading(request.operationThreading());
         this.documentType = request.documentType();
         this.routing = request.routing();
         this.preference = request.preference();
diff --git a/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/rest/action/percolate/RestPercolateAction.java b/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/rest/action/percolate/RestPercolateAction.java
index 5db46a50ff1..2b366a2bdf1 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/rest/action/percolate/RestPercolateAction.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/rest/action/percolate/RestPercolateAction.java
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ import org.elasticsearch.action.get.GetRequest;
 import org.elasticsearch.action.percolate.PercolateRequest;
 import org.elasticsearch.action.percolate.PercolateResponse;
 import org.elasticsearch.action.support.IgnoreIndices;
+import org.elasticsearch.action.support.broadcast.BroadcastOperationThreading;
 import org.elasticsearch.client.Client;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.inject.Inject;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.settings.Settings;
@@ -112,6 +113,16 @@ public class RestPercolateAction extends BaseRestHandler {
     void executePercolate(final PercolateRequest percolateRequest, final RestRequest restRequest, final RestChannel restChannel) {
         // we just send a response, no need to fork
         percolateRequest.listenerThreaded(false);
+
+        if (restRequest.hasParam("operation_threading")) {
+            BroadcastOperationThreading operationThreading = BroadcastOperationThreading.fromString(restRequest.param("operation_threading"), null);
+            if (operationThreading == BroadcastOperationThreading.NO_THREADS) {
+                // don't do work on the network thread
+                operationThreading = BroadcastOperationThreading.SINGLE_THREAD;
+            }
+            percolateRequest.operationThreading(operationThreading);
+        }
+
         client.percolate(percolateRequest, new ActionListener<PercolateResponse>() {
             @Override
             public void onResponse(PercolateResponse response) {
diff --git a/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/benchmark/percolator/PercolatorStressBenchmark.java b/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/benchmark/percolator/PercolatorStressBenchmark.java
index fee856b4e72..8d9f7bebc11 100644
--- a/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/benchmark/percolator/PercolatorStressBenchmark.java
+++ b/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/benchmark/percolator/PercolatorStressBenchmark.java
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ public class PercolatorStressBenchmark {
                 .put(SETTING_NUMBER_OF_REPLICAS, 0)
                 .build();
 
-        Node[] nodes = new Node[2];
+        Node[] nodes = new Node[1];
         for (int i = 0; i < nodes.length; i++) {
             nodes[i] = nodeBuilder().settings(settingsBuilder().put(settings).put("name", "node" + i)).node();
         }