Women's polo: mixed play and its own handicap.

Two ways to play

The HPA says that in polo men and women compete on equal terms. Its 2026 rules (Rule 2.8) offer outdoor and arena polo as an open, mixed category, and separately offer women's polo, which is restricted to individuals recorded female at birth and has its own handicap.

The HPA's 2024 Year Book describes the same structure: mixed polo open to all, alongside women's handicaps and women's competitions, with eligibility for women's polo set by an HPA women's polo policy based on 2021 guidance from the UK Sports Councils. Internationally, FIP publishes a Transgender Declaration and Policy for its women's events alongside its procedures for the Women's World Polo Championship.

The women's handicap

In mixed polo, women play on the ordinary handicap. Women's polo uses a second scale.

• HPA: the HPA says its women's handicap was introduced in 2015, uses the same scale, and applies only to women-only matches. The 2026 rules explain the reason: the HPA regards polo as gender-affected, shown by the spread of handicaps women hold in mixed polo, so the women's handicap spreads female players across the full -2 to 10 range.
• AAP (Argentina): the AAP's 2026 women's tournament regulations set each player's women's handicap on a 0 to 10 scale, assigned by the AAP's Women's Polo Subcommission.

HPA 2026 conversion guide

For a player's first women's handicap, the HPA's 2026 rules (Annex C) give a guide from the mixed handicap:

The HPA's 2026 Victrix Ludorum levels for women's polo are 12 to 16 goals and, for Victrix High, 17 to 22 goals. The handicaps page explains how team totals and goals on handicap work.

Women's polo in Argentina: the AAP 2026 regulations

• Foreign players start on the highest handicap they hold abroad. A player with no handicap gets a "T" (temporary) handicap based on her level, and a player on a T handicap must play a high-handicap tournament before the Argentine Women's Open.
• Individual caps: 3 goals per player at low level (0 to 6 goals), 5 goals at low level (5 to 10 goals) and 8 goals at medium level (11 to 15 goals).
• Handicap matches: all women's matches are played on handicap except the Women's Open.
• Chukkers by level: 5 chukkers at low 0 to 6 goals; 6 at low 5 to 10, medium 11 to 15 and high 16 to 22 or more. Low-handicap events may use 4 chukkers of 5 minutes so that two games can be played in a day.
• Timing: 7 minutes plus up to 30 seconds, with the last chukker ending on the first bell unless the score is tied.
• Fouls follow the AAP's general rules without change.
• Age: minors may play adult tournaments from age 13.

Global Polo dates the Argentine Women's Open to 2017.

Championships

FIP's championships include the Women's World Polo Championship and the Ladies European Championship. FIP records that the first Women's World Polo Championship was held in 2022 in Buenos Aires and won by Argentina, with the United States second and England third.

In England, Cowdray Park Polo Club reports that in July 2026 the Ladies British Open final and the British Open for the Cowdray Gold Cup were played on the same day for the first time. Yaguara (Milly Hine, Mia and Myla Cambiaso, and patron Martina Lowe) beat Salty Polo, whose team included Nina Clarkin, 7 to 6.5. The women's tournaments page covers the calendar.

Leading players

Two players who have represented England have each been described as the top-rated woman in the game, at different dates:

• Nina Clarkin: Cowdray Park Polo Club's July 2026 report describes her as a 10-goal player and the world's top-ranked woman. According to Wikipedia, she won the 2003 Cowdray Gold Cup with Hindon.
• Hazel Jackson: Tempus magazine (12 June 2025) described her as a 10-goal woman player, the women's world number one and England's women's captain for 2025, and the only British professional woman in that season's high goal. Tempus says she did not come from a polo family and started in earnest after receiving a pony for her 21st birthday.

The pioneers

Somerville College, Oxford, says Claire Tomlinson (née Lucas) played in the 1964 Varsity Match as the first female player, entered as "Mr Lucas", and in 1966 became the first female captain of the Oxford University Polo Club. Somerville says she was the first woman to win the County Cup (1972) and the Queen's Cup (1979), was repeatedly refused entry to high-goal tournaments by the HPA, helped end the rule that barred women from high-goal polo, and in 1986 became the first woman in the world to reach a 5-goal handicap. Somerville gives no date for the rule change.

In the United States, Wikipedia describes Sue Sally Hale as widely regarded as the first woman admitted to the USPA, in 1972, after years of reportedly playing in disguise; Wikipedia notes that the USPA itself treats the disguise as an allegation. The women in polo history page tells the longer story.

No source found for this site states when women first became eligible to play the men's Argentine Open or the HPA's Gold Cup.