Claire Tomlinson

Claire Janet Tomlinson was a trailblazing English polo player and pony breeder who defied convention to become one of the most garlanded players in the sport she loved.

Claire Lucas was born on 14 February 1944, as the daughter of Ethel (née Daer) and Lascelles Arthur Lucas, who founded Woolmers Park Polo Club in 1949. Her father was instrumental in the revival of polo in England after the Second World War.

She went from Wycombe Abbey to take A-levels at Millfield and, while there, was selected for the British junior fencing team. Going on to study agricultural economics at Somerville College in 1963, it was not long before the young Lucas was awarded a squash blue and a fencing half-blue, and was short-listed for the Olympic fencing team. When she was told that the Oxford University Polo team (OUPC) was short of players, her father’s approval was obtained, and she took up polo seriously. Her participation in the 1964 Varsity Match as the first female player was a milestone in the history of the match; the club, fearing an outcry, had cautiously entered her as ‘Mr Lucas’. In 1966, she became the first female captain of OUPC. 

After Oxford, she travelled for her first job to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to buy horses alongside her brother, John. Her standard of polo improved to such an extent in Argentina that, on her return to England, she formed ‘Los Locos’ (the Mad Ones) polo team with a cavalry officer, Simon Tomlinson, whom she later married.

In the ’70s and ’80s, Claire Tomlinson became synonymous with excellence in polo, as she smashed successive glass ceilings and set new records, many of which still stand. During the ’70s, she became the first woman to win the County Cup (1972) and the Queen’s Cup (1979), having fought for her participation after the Hurlingham Polo Association (HPA) repeatedly denied her entry to the high-goal tournaments. She also swept away the rule forbidding women to play high-goal polo, becoming one of the sport’s few true masters of the number one position and, in 1986, the first woman in the world to rise to five goals.

Alongside her exceptional competitive career, Tomlinson was also a powerful advocate for polo. She was chairman of the Beaufort Polo Club, Gloucestershire, which she and Simon re-established in 1989, and where she taught both Princes William and Prince Harry. In 1993, with Hugh Dawnay, she instigated and set up a coaching system for the H.P.A. from scratch, which had a lasting impact on how players are taught. Finally, Tomlinson was a noted breeder of polo ponies, having begun a breeding programmes in the UK and Argentina during the 1970s.

Claire and Simon Tomlinson had three children, all of whom are active in the sport of polo. She died in 2022 at the age of 77.