Charmayne James talks life after Scamper through her stallion Clayton, a clone of Charmayne’s legendary 10-time world champion gelding.
When I first thought about cloning Scamper (Gills Bay Boy), I remember the process of realizing that cloning was an option. It seemed strange at first, but Scamper had such great bone and feet, and he was so hardy. His bloodline was lost — there were no more colts out of that mare — and cloning was the only option to have something with those genetics.
As my decision was playing out, I didn’t see myself going on and competing for a long time. I was doing my clinics and had my son Tyler. I was cutting back on rodeoing and focusing on my schools and family. We were definitely into breeding horses at that time. If we had a stud with Scamper’s great characteristics of being sound, strong, able to take the road, have the speed and the great conformation, and if we can bring that to some babies, that’s what I was really interested in.
Making Clayton
We cloned Scamper at age 29 and got Clayton in 2006. He really looks like Scamper, but he also doesn’t — he’s a little smaller and has a bit of white on him. They say that pigment migrates in the womb, so he does look a little different. But in a lot of ways, he’s the same. He’s just a stud version of Scamper. They’re both dominant personalities and act dominantly toward other horses. They’re the ones in charge, so you take the alpha horse that Scamper was as a gelding and put it in Clayton, and he’s even more so because he’s a stud. He does love the mares. But nonetheless, he’s great to ride, you can rope on him, we loped him around the barrels, and then he spent some time at the breeding farm.
At first, people were a little leery because they didn’t know much about clones. Offspring of clones can’t be registered, so we didn’t breed a lot of mares. I don’t send him to the breeding farm anymore. He lives at my house now, and I give him snacks every night at the barn. He’s just a neat horse to have around; I can just jump on him and go ride.
Clayton’s Offspring
From what I can see in those babies and the people I’ve talked to who have them is that they are definitely gritty. I think people get confused with the word gritty, thinking they buck, because Scamper bucked. Personally, I have two of them and can get on them after not being ridden for two years, and they wouldn’t even attempt to buck. They’re tough horses, and I don’t mean tough to ride, because they train pretty easily. I think those horses just love to compete.
They seem to be one-person type of horses. Everybody thought Scamper was bad because he bucked, but for whatever reason, he just clicked with me. I was a little girl, innocent, didn’t threaten him in any way, and he just loved me. That’s how the Clayton babies are. They bond to people, and if you do right by them, they live up to their potential.
Scamper was really good at going from long-strided to shortening his stride and staying very collected. I would say all the Clayton offspring I’ve rode are naturally collected. I think that’s huge. They change leads easily. You can get a good handle on them pretty fast. The natural ability to be collected was half of why Scamper was so good, and that’s what I felt in the ones I’ve ridden.
The Why
Clayton is not Scamper. Everybody thought I was going to try to recreate Scamper, but that wasn’t the case. When I see Clayton, he’s just a piece of Scamper, part of his cells and DNA. Some of Scamper comes through in him, and that’s fun to see, especially with the babies.
It takes a while to get a stud recognized and to get horses out there doing well. Part of the issue is we didn’t breed a lot of mares, so we didn’t have a lot of horses where people went on and did something with them. Percentage-wise with what he’s sired, he’s done pretty good with the ones that are out there, like the gelding Jana Guthrie is winning on, Waylon James.
I don’t advertise or promote him, because I don’t make my money from breeding him. Anybody who wants to breed to him contacts me and we figure out a way to make it happen. I’m so different than what everybody else does. I devoted so much of my life to horses winning those world championships. Nowadays, my time and my family life is worth a lot to me — our kids grow up so fast, so that’s where my focus is.
When Clayton’s offspring win and do well, it makes me happy, because I don’t do this for money. It’s just fun to see people do good on his babies. They’re a piece of Scamper.
For more information and clinic schedule, visit charmaynejames.com.
This article was originally posted in the August 2022 issue of Barrel Horse News.
