From Panthers To Ponies—The Evolution Of The Winter Equestrian Festival

The nation’s largest winter show circuit has come a long way in three decades.

In the early 1970s, Wellington, Fla., was a tiny, quiet town that consisted mostly of cypress trees, Everglades deer and Florida panthers. A few neighborhoods with dirt roads had popped up, but land values were low, and farm fields far outnumbered retail establishments.

What a difference 35 years makes. Wellington is now home to one of the largest show circuits in the world, the Winter Equestrian Festival, a vibrant community with a host of upscale shopping boutiques, restaurants and a mall, with a population approaching 60,000.

Back in the quieter days, however, a few entrepreneurs had a vision that Wellington could be more than vegetable farms and cattle ranches. Gene Mische and William Ylvisaker were two such men.

In April of 1978, Mische received a phone call from his good friend Ylvisaker. Ylvisaker wanted him to come over for lunch so he could show Mische a project he’d been working on.

“We met and went over to Palm Beach Polo,” said Mische. “Except of course at that time it wasn’t there. There was just a bunch of shrubs and sand, and it looked completely desolate.”

Ylvisaker pointed out where he thought the stadium should be placed and explained how he wanted the barns to be set up.

“Then he said, ‘Next February or March I’d like you to put on a horse show here.’ So I asked him, ‘Bill, what are you smoking?’ ”

Mische recalled with a laugh. “But we did it. We never thought it was going to be possible, but by the following March Stadium Jumping Inc. produced the first horse show on the Palm Beach Polo Club show grounds.”

Although the Winter Equestrian Festival had already been in existence for four years, the shows were scattered across the state. Exhibitors traveled from Miami to Ocala to Jacksonville, Winter Haven, Tampa and Palm Beach throughout the winter. Sometimes the shows were back-to-back, which meant that in order to compete at all of them, competitors would have to be on the road for almost two months straight, packing and unpacking.

Before 1974, when Stadium Jumping officially launched the Winter Equestrian Festival, most Florida shows were managed by individual companies, and trainers couldn’t count on the dates of the shows being consistent year to year.

“We started Stadium Jumping for the sole purpose of hosting the American Invitational at Tampa,” explained Mische. “That was in 1972. At that time I was president of the Central Florida Horse Show Association, and we’d taken over running a few of the winter shows around Florida.

“When we went to do the shows for the winter of 1974, we decided to make a little circuit out of it and call it the Winter Equestrian Festival,” said Mische. “Then the other shows were getting so big that it called for a commitment [for the show dates] from [the show managements] ahead of time. They decided that the financial risk and responsibility was too great, so Stadium Jumping decided to take them over.”

A New Home

Four years later, the Palm Beach Polo and Country Club was built in Wellington, providing a more permanent location for the winter shows. Although the circuit still moved from Wellington to other locations, two or three were hosted at the polo club as well as at the Palm Beach Fairgrounds. At the end of the circuit, two or three shows were also held at the Tampa show grounds.