EMMA TOMLINSON MA VetMB MRCVS
Company Director
Emma studied at Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge receiving a BA honours 1993-1996 and a Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine 1996-1999.
The majority of Emma's veterinary career has been spent in equine practice, currently working for Buffy Shirley-Bevan, one of the UK's foremost equine vets, specialising in top class racehorses, and all other types of sports horses. Emma also covers the most of the veterinary work at the Beaufort Polo Club as well as running Beaufort Embryo Transfer. Emma spends some of the winter in Argentina vetting horses for European buyers.
It was whilst working in Argentina that Emma met Fernando Riera who is recognised as being the top embryo transfer vet in the world. She appreciated how well the process worked under his auspices and was immediately inspired to try this method of breeding back in the UK, with his expert advice and guidence. Up to this point vets had not been too successful in the UK as they lacked the necessary experience and did not have acces to the level of recipient herd that is required. Emma immediately recognised that embryo transfer was a fabulous way of breeding from active sports horses without having to interfere with their competitive programme, at the same time allowing important bloodlines to continue at the very highest level.
Emma invited Fernando to help pioneer the first commercial embryo transfer breeding programme of its kind in the UK. Having started with polo ponies the business now encompasses most sports categories.
Emma insists that for the future Beaufort Embryo Transfer will focus on continual improvement on increasing the quality of sports horse breeds and expanding the progression of frozen embryo usage for later dates, thus enabling higher rates of transfers abroad.
Emma is one of England's top lady Polo players having represented the England team and being a qualified Polo coach. She has also Event ridden to Intermediate standard and ridden as an Amateur Jockey in Point to Points and National Hunt.
CLAIRE TOMLINSON
Company Secretary
Claire Tomlinson went to Oxford University in 1963, studying agricultural economics at Somerville College. She soon earned a squash blue and was short-listed for the Olympic fencing team. Claire captained the Oxford Polo team beating Cambridge 7-0 in 1966 earning herself a half blue!
Claire became the only woman in the world to rise to five goals, spending more time on a horse than many professional players. She is more than simply the most influential lady player the world has ever known with her unswerving determination, exceptional understanding of the horse and sheer love of the game she has become a pioneering, world class coach, a champion for the young. In 1993 with Hugh Dawnay she instigated and set up a coaching system for the H.P.A. from scratch, which has had a profound effect on how players are taught. She is admired for her ability to instruct across the spectrum, working with leading professionals as effectively as novices. She is one of six official H.P.A. team coaches, and regularly coaches British squads at F.I.P. championships as well as holding sessions for the H.P.A. Junior Development Squad at Down Farm.
Claire is the biggest breeder of polo ponies in Britain, having started in the 1970s and is pro-active with the modern breeding programme presently in operation, which includes Beaufort Embryo Transfer. Her father had always bred polo ponies, putting a small Thoroughbred stallion to his best mares. Down Farm has always had a Thoroughbred stallion, previously Man of Harlech by Welsh Pageant and now Mister Superb by Superlative as well as standing two Argentine stallions, Chess and Hector, who came from Héctor Barrantes and are respectively by Top Secret and Sequito, dozens of whose progeny play in the Argentine Open. Claire's sons, Luke and Mark both play polo for England and their top ponies are home-bred out of Claire's best playing mares.
DR FERNANDO RIERA
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR
