Polo arrived in 1977, and the winter show season now runs roughly twelve to thirteen weeks each January through April, drawing riders from all 50 states and more than 30 countries.
The second act began on paper. In 1972 Palm Beach County approved a planned unit development on the old ranch lands, and builders started laying out a community around Lake Wellington. Then, in 1977, polo arrived — brought by Gould Corporation chairman William "Bill" Ylvisaker — and everything about the place changed direction. Palm Beach wealth looked fifteen miles west for room that the island could never offer: room for barns, rings, paddocks, and polo fields. Within a decade the strawberry country had a new crop, and it stood sixteen hands tall.
Why People Visit Wellington Florida
Wellington is the Winter Equestrian Capital of the World and one of South Florida's most distinctive towns: a place built on the reclaimed swampland of a Harvard aviator's Flying Cow Ranch, the one-time world's largest strawberry patch, now home to tens of thousands of horses every winter. It blends horse-country culture with Everglades-edge wildlife preserves and wetland parks — show jumping, dressage, and polo on one side, boardwalks and birdwatching towers on the other. From the C.O.W. ranch and the strawberry fields to the bridle trails and the polo grounds, history and everyday culture sit side by side. Strawberry patch to horse country. The winter capital of the riding world.
