Throughout her career, Charmayne James never picked up an endorsement from a feed company. Not because they never offered her feed in exchange for her name, but because she had no desire to use their products. She already had a feed that worked for her a homemade ration that's now publicly known as Scamper's Choice. Made by Gore Bros. Inc, in Comanche, Texas, Scamper's Choice is an updated formula of the feed ration that's been Scamper' sole diet since the early 1980s. It was his diet through rigors of hauling for 10 world titles as well as in his retirement.

Scamper's Choice has several features that set it apart from mainstream brands. First, it's a roasted grain ration, and secondly, milo is the main source of efficient energy. Most people assume that milo is just a cattle feed; however, when processed through the roasting and popping, it becomes an incredibly efficient source of energy for horses. The feed was originally developed by Dr. Gordon Wooden, an animal nutritionist who developed rations for the cattle in James's father's feedlot in Clayton, N.M. Wooden had all the feedlot horses put on popped milo, and they thrived on it.

That's all they had, James said of the popped milo ration. The Jameses roasted their own at the mill at their feedlot. Feedlot horses don't really have the best life. There was about 30 head of horses that would get rode hard one week and not rode the next. We never had horses tie up, never had any colic, and never had any founder. When I started going on the road with Scamper, we always took popped milo with us. The only time I got away from it was if I was ever on the road and I ran out or couldn't get any in right away and I would have to switch to something else. I could always tell a huge difference, so it was something that I wasn't willing to change.

When the feedlot in Clayton shut down its mill, James turned to Gore Bros., a family owned milling business that's operated for nearly 60 years. Gore Bros. is primarily involved with the diary cattle industry, and it was their equipment, the grain roasters, that made them the ideal producers for Scamper's Choice. Most companies don't roast grain because they can't put moisture back into the grain to make up the shrinkage lost in the roasting process, Geoff Martin, the sales manager of Scamper's Choice at Gore Bros., explained. You see more roasters in the dairy and feedlot business because they have more control over pricing based on performance.

Martin explained that processing grain makes the nutrients more accessible. Grain can either be cracked, rolled, steamed and smashed like a corn flake or popped like the milo in Scamper's Choice. The milo is heated and popped like popcorn. Then the popped kernel is flattened by a roller. This is one of the most efficient process of getting the starch, which is an energy source, available to the horse, Martin said. Nutritionist Dr. Richard Godbee explains the benefits of the process further. In a rather simplistic way, he says, popping the milo by roasting it starts the digestive process for the horse. Popping the milo increases the surface area of the grain so the digestive enzymes have better access to the nutritional portions since they don't have to get through the grain's harder outer shell.

Essentially, Godbee says, the site of digestion and absorption is changed by the roasting process. The stomach is better able to process the roasted starches into energy. Typically problems begin when starches remain unprocessed as they travel through the small and large colon, which can lead to metabolic problems such as colic and grain-induced laminitis. Changing the site of absorption also means more balanced energy levels for the horse. Feeds that are higher in sugars and starches often leave a horse full of energy one minute and lethargic the next, Godbee explains. All starches are not created equal. What you get are spikes in the blood glucose and it crashes off. In a high performance equine athlete timing those peaks and valleys can be a serious problem. By smoothing out the absorption process through popping the milo, horses don't get the peaks and valleys but have balanced maintained energy.

It also eliminates the hotness factor. Martin expounds, What you are looking for with these starches are a smooth release of energy in the horse's digestive system without providing a spiked amount at any point. If they get a spiked released, the horse tends to be hyper active. They're getting the energy that they need, but their state of mind is such that they don't perform well. With Scamper's Choice, you are releasing the energy slowly and efficiently so you have very few metabolic problems, yet you have the energy that horse needs to perform.

Scamper's Choice is also lower in protein than most rations, but it still meets the national nutritional requirements for horses. With a performance horse, we really don't need those high levels of protein, Martin said. If you add excess protein to a horse's diet, it will metabolically try to convert that protein to energy at a cost to other processes.

In other words, trying to convert protein into energy is a very inefficient process to the horse and ends up costing the horse readily available energy to gain a small amount of energy from an inferior source. Because the ration is balanced so well, it works for a variety of horses in the different stages of life and little supplementation is necessary

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James feeds it to all her horses, including growing horses, stallions and broodmares. Since broodmares do need more protein, James adds more alfalfa hay to their diets. She also hinted that they are looking at developing a broodmare feed with a little more protein and a senior feed that has a little more fiber than Scamper's Choice. Basically, for horses stalled she feeds a flake of grass and a flake of alfalfa along with Scamper's Choice. Her broodmares are on pasture so they just get a little alfalfa. Her current performers, like Tinys Easy Streak (Charlie) and Dash Dreamer (Sea Doo), live in the pasture so they graze and don't need hay, and just get Scamper's Choice.

The only supplements James has ever added to the feed are joint products and her Tahitian Noni Juice. For all her hauling, she never had to add extra vitamins and minerals. Godbee warned against over supplementation of a balanced ration. We get too carried away with supplements, he said. You have a super balanced feed and you start adding all these supplements and you've unbalanced your feed. With Scamper's Choice people don't have to add 40 different supplements. There might be one or two (like a joint supplement) that they need, but other than that people should make sure they have a good forage (hay) program, pet their horses on the head and go use them. It's that simple.

Godbee and James do add salt and mineral block as insurance policies against their hay and pasture quality. Godbee explains, I use a calcium phosphorus trace mineral and salt mixture. I use that as an insurance policy against my forage program because it changes. You can get your hay from the same guy from the same field, and in two different cuttings, the calcium and phosphorus are going to be different. Some horse owners are concerned that the feed is a sweet feed, but actually it has very little molasses when compared to other mainstream products. It just has enough molasses to keep the vitamins and minerals stuck together, so they don't settle to the bottom of the bag, James explains. I don't worry that much about the molasses in my feed.

As far as cost, Godbee says people need to get past the initial cost per bag and calculate cost per pound per head. Quality costs money, he said. There's nothing cheap in this feed. You won't feed as much of it. A lot people confuse the cost of a bag of feed with what it costs to take care of a horse. The only time the cost of a bag of feed comes into play is when you have to ask "Do I have enough money in my pocket to buy that bag of feed today?" Its cost per head per day. That comes down to how much do I have to feed multiplied by what it cost per pound, plus what I had to add to make it work. You don't have to add to Scamper's Choice to make it work. It has the energy, it has the vitamins and minerals, so you don't have to go out there and guess about supplements and worry about unbalancing a balanced feed.

What makes Scamper's Choice such a high quality feed is that Gore Bros. will not least cost the ration. In other words, they won't use the cheapest ingredients available. By using only the best quality ingredients available, the feed is the same bag after bag. For James the proof of the quality of Scamper's Choice are out grazing in her pastures. A horse can get everything it needs out of that feed, James said. I've seen it work on all my horses. You look at Scamper, how great he looks. It's cost effective, plus I know how well my horses have done on it. That's why I love it so much.

More information on Scamper's Choice can be found on James's website charmaynejames.com or at the Gore Bros. Inc. site gorebros.com. Interested parties can call Geoff Martin or Sandy Laughlin at 800-637-0772 or email them at scamperschoice@gorebros.com.