NSBA Announces 2025 Legacy Award Recipients

The National Snaffle Bit Association recently announced that Sharon Mullins McLendon, of Whitesboro, Texas, and AQHA gelding Zippo Romeo will receive the 2025 Legacy Award.

The Legacy Award honors people or horses who have made, over a period of years, a significant and lasting contribution to the show horse industry. Emphasis is placed on the individual’s contributions to the betterment of the show horse industry, their ability to demonstrate integrity and reward those who have made a lasting impact on the direction of the industry.

Sharon Mullins McLendon

Sharon Mullins McLendon was recruited by NSBA’s first president, Leo Barbera, in 1982 to help bring the association to life. Sharon was instrumental in writing and revising the original articles of incorporation and established and maintained all related documentation. She attended the many meetings, discussions and phone calls as the association began all while working for Southern Airways, which is now known as Delta Airlines, and raising her young family. Through all the initial meetings and events, Sharon organized and kept the association’s paperwork in her home. Founders often joked that NSBA was born on the sideboard of Sharon’s home.

Sharon was also instrumental in establishing a collaboration between NSBA and Eastern/Western Quarter Horse Journal as the association’s initial communication tool with the equine world, prior to the establishment of NSBA’s member magazine, The Way To Go. She also solicited the support of corporate sponsors for the association, including Harris Leather and Silverworks.

 

Zippo Romeo

AQHA gelding Zippo Romeo stands as the all-time leading Youth Trail horse in AQHA history, earning 2,715 Youth Trail points and 4,288 total AQHA points. The gelding ranks in the top ten of all-time AQHA Youth All Around horses by points earned. Among the accomplishments ‘Romeo’ earned were three NSBA year-end championships, two reserve year-end championships, three NSBA world championships and three reserve world championships, accumulating lifetime NSBA earnings of $25,263.11. In addition, he earned two AQHA world championships in Trail and Hunt Seat Equitation as well as two reserve AQHA championships in Trail. The gelding also earned five Quarter Horse Congress championships in events ranging from Trail and Western Riding to Horsemanship and Hunt Seat Equitation, and he was named AQHA year-end champion six times in Trail, Horsemanship and Western Pleasure.

Although the majority of Zippo Romeo’s career occurred before NSBA sanctioned pattern classes beyond Trail and Western Riding, the gelding demonstrated what the ideal NSBA horse could become with a strong Western Pleasure foundation, taking his riders to awards in Senior, Amateur, Youth, Novice/Level 1 Youth and Amateur, as well as Small Fry divisions.

The Legacy Award recipients will be recognized during the NSBA Honors Banquet on Sunday, August 10, held at the NSBA Breeders Championship Futurity and World Championship Show, being held August 7-17 at the Built Ford Tough Livestock Complex in Tulsa, Oklahoma.