The Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders' and Exhibitors' Association is proud to announce the Legends that will be participating in the Lunch With The Legends Event on Sunday, August 24, 2025, at 11am-1pm in the Hall of Fame Club inside Cooper Steel Arena on the Celebration grounds. The registration deadline has been extended to Sunday, August 17th by midnight and those who register by that time will receive a free t-shirt!

2025 Legends:
Bob Adcock
Spencer Benedict
Joe Lester
Maggie Moore
Tim Smith

Bob Adcock grew up in the world of the Tennessee Walking Horse, riding and training the family horses with his brothers as a teenager.  His dad, Odie Adcock won a World Grand Championship with Raven’s Touch of Class, a notable plantation horse in the 1980s. Bob has had too many horses to count over the decades and almost too many world championships to remember.  He rode to World Grand Championships in 2023 and 2024 on Born a Maverick. The Adcock family splits their time between Lititz, Pennsylvania and Shelbyville, where their horses are in training with Callaway Stables.  Bob and his brothers also followed their dad into the world of auctions and automobiles, founding Adcock Brothers Auto Wholesalers in 1972.

Joe Lester was riding horses as soon as he could sit up in the saddle.  He has participated in virtually every discipline available in the Walking Horse world and even won a Racking Horse world championship as a teenager.  At 18, Joe trained and rode a TWHBEA National Futurity champion, Name That Tune, and he won his first World Championship at the 2015 Celebration on I’m AK-47.  His first World Grand Championship came soon after, when he rode under the Celebration spotlight on La Patrona.  Joe operates Joe Lester Stables, with assistant Bailey Momb.  Joe trained and rode the 2023 Maiden Champion, Jalapeno, returning to win a World Grand Championship with the young stallion in 2024.  He was named WHTA Pleasure Horse Trainer of the Year in 2024.

Tim Smith learned to train horses from his dad, Tex Smith, in his hometown of Columbiana, Alabama.  He helped train the horses at home and showed in some juvenile classes, then as he grew older, he started helping with customer horses.  At eighteen, he joined the WHTA and began his own training business, moving to Shelbyville in 2003.  Some of the notable Amateur World Grand Champions Tim trained have been Marty McFly, Mr. Heisman, and Epic.  He was chosen as WHTA Trainer of the Year in 2012. It was not until 2024 that he won his own set of roses, riding Cavender to the World Grand Championship.  

Spencer Benedict also was born into a Tennessee Walking Horse family.  His father Carroll Benedict was recognized by TWHBEA as a Master Breeder in 2017.  A native of Glasglow, Kentucky, Spencer has been training horses since the early 1990’s.  He ran a barn in Shelbyville, then returned to Kentucky, where he was inducted in the Kentucky Walking Horse Association Hall of Fame.  In 2023 Spencer and his wife Carrie moved their breeding and training business back to Tennessee, near Murfreesboro.  This full-service facility for both training and breeding has several barns with a capacity of over 150 stalls.  Spencer Benedict is a former TWHBEA vice president of the performance show horse division and is currently serving as WHTA’s president.

Maggie Moore has been one of the most consistent winners in the amateur and amateur-owned and trained division of the Tennessee Walking Horse industry for over four decades.  Beginning with horses on the West Coast and continuing her winning ways after a move to Tennessee, she has found the winners circle with horses such as Just Doin’ My Time, Designer Champagne, Lion King, Ferdinand, Luciano, Stapleton, and Roan Ranger.  Her colt, Twenty-Four Carrots, was the inaugural champion of the prestigious Maiden Championship in 2019.
Maggie has also been known across the country as a premier equine photographer and published a stunning book of photographs called Walking with Friends.  The book featured some of the photographer’s own Tennessee Walking Horses.

Thanks to generous sponsors, the lunch is free to all youth who want to attend! The legends will sign autographs and pose for photos with attendees. They will also participate in a panel discussion where youth will have a chance to ask them questions.

Although there is not a charge to attend, youth are asked to register in advance online at www.twhbea.com/legends. Everyone who registers by midnight on August 17th will receive a free t-shirt!
Please contact Olivia Gentry at 931-359-0583 or [email protected] with any questions.