When Deena Adams took the reserve championship in the Limited Non-Pro finals at the NCHA Futurity riding MH San Tules Clay (pictured) on Sunday, the paycheck boosted the earnings of Clays Little Peppy’s offspring over $500,000. Deena’s father-in-law, Wes Adams, bred the 3-year-old, and blended the names of her sire, Futurity champ San Tule Freckles, and dam, Clays Little Peppy. Clays Little Peppy, in turn, took her name from the son of Judy Garrett, a Garland, Texas schoolteacher.

Judy and her husband, Button Garrett, bought their first horse, Miss Doc Smoke, which was Clays Little Peppy’s dam, with an eye to the 1983 NCHA Futurity. But when that mare had physical problems, they bred her to Little Peppy, and got Clays Little Peppy. Teddy Johnson started Clays Little Peppy and said that “she was really cow smart. She spent most of her time trying to figure out how to contain a cow and stay in the position where she wasn’t going to lose that cow.”

The Garretts were elated when Buster Welch elected to ride her in the NCHA Futurity and the mare went on to win more than $200,000, ridden by Buster Welch, Greg Welch and Gary Bellenfant, as well as Smokey Garrett in the non-pro ranks.

“She’s a real clear-minded mare, and she’s real intent,” Buster Welch said in 1989, as he was winning some of the mare’s largest paychecks, shortly after recovering from open heart surgery himself.

Clays Little Peppy went on to produce Clays Little Kit, an earner of $228,000, plus five other individuals that earned $25,000 or more. Her latest performer, MH San Tules Clay, was able to take the reserve championship Sunday night despite being sidelined for eight months following a trailer accident.

“She’s a lot of fun. She definitely doesn’t feel like a 3-year-old,” Adams said. “She makes my job pretty easy.”

MH San Tules Clay will be on stage again in Tuesday’s Limited Open finals, and in Friday’s Non-Pro semi-finals.