Claire Janet Tomlinson (née Lucas, 14 February 1944 – 12 January 2022) was an English polo player and pony breeder.
[1] Tomlinson was born on 14 February 1944,[2] as the daughter of Ethel (née Daer) and Lascelles Arthur Lucas, who founded Woolmers Park Polo Club on a 250-acre estate in Hertfordshire in 1949.
[8] She became one of polo's few true masters of the number one position and the first woman in the world to rise to five goals in 1986.
[9] She swept away the rule forbidding women in British high-goal and became the first to compete on equal terms with men at the top tier.
[18] She bred polo ponies, starting in the 1970s, and was pro-active with the breeding programme in the UK and Argentina, which included Beaufort Embryo Transfer.
Their home at Down Farm, near Tetbury, Gloucestershire, burned while the family was away on holiday in April 1996, and was a total loss.